And now began a dreary time for Jeanne. Cold looks greeted her on every side. The old, pleasant, cheery companionship with Bob was no more. She missed even the tiffs they had had, and longed with a pa.s.sionate yearning for home and friends. The march to Jackson would have been a pleasant one as it led through the autumn woods which shone through a silvery mist amid spicy breezes which blew cool and keen from the heart of the pines, had it not been for the manner in which she was treated.
No one paid the least attention to her comings and goings. Indeed it seemed to her that Colonel Peyton would gladly welcome the fact of her disappearance, and so she grew into the habit of riding a little apart from the others and sometimes of loitering considerably in the rear of the cavalcade. It had been the original intention that she go in the wagon with Bob, but under the altered conditions a horse had been given her while Bob rode in front with her father.
The afternoon of the second day out Jeanne dropped behind the regiment, for she was very tired, intending to wait for the wagons and to ask the drivers to let her rest for a while in one of them. A bend of the road hid the regiment from view. The wagons were far in the rear and for the time she was alone.
"Jeanne," came her name in low tones from the underbrush at the side of the road.
Jeanne drew rein quickly and looked wonderingly about her. She saw nothing and thinking that she had imagined the call, she started to go on, when it came again.
"Jeanne! Jeanne! Wait a moment."
Pale and trembling the girl stopped, and then to her astonishment d.i.c.k came breathlessly though the undergrowth.
"d.i.c.k!" she cried. "Oh, d.i.c.k!"
"I have waited and watched for this chance ever since I left the camp,"
cried the lad. "Come with me, Jeanne. You have no business with these rebels."
"But Colonel Peyton----" began Jeanne.
"Come," cried d.i.c.k seizing the bridle of her horse. "I do not understand why you are here, but it is no place for you. I will take you home."
"Will you, d.i.c.k?" asked the girl joyfully, preparing to dismount.
"Don"t get off the horse. We will need him. I don"t know just where our men are, and we may have a long distance to go."
"But he is not ours," objected Jeanne, whose residence among soldiers had not been long enough to render her conscience elastic on this point.
"Yes, he is," answered d.i.c.k. "The Government confiscated all the property belonging to the Johnnies long ago, and I guess this horse comes under that act. I am only doing my duty in taking the animal."
"Do you think so?" asked Jeanne, dubiously.
"Certainly, I do," and the lad led the horse away from the road into the thicket. "I thought I was going to have lots of trouble to get you away from those people," he said, when they were a safe distance.
"They don"t care anything about me," said the girl, sadly. "O d.i.c.k, I"ve had such a time!"
"There! There!" d.i.c.k drew her head against his shoulder caressingly.
"It"s all over now. I"ll take care of you. But tell me, Jeanne, how in the world did you come down here in this benighted country? I left you safe at home in New York and find you here. How did it happen?"
"I thought that perhaps father had written," and Jeanne looked up through her tears.
"No; I have not heard from the folks for quite a while, but we have been on the march, and I was taken prisoner. I know that there are letters for me somewhere."
"Then I will begin at the beginning," said Jeanne, stroking his hair tenderly. "Oh, d.i.c.k, it is so good to be with some one who belongs to me!"
CHAPTER XXIII
RECAPTURE
"We must not stay here, Jeanne," said d.i.c.k, after his sister had finished her narrative. "We must strike out for the Mississippi River. Once there we may see some of our boats. That will be our best show for getting to our lines."
"Is it far to the river, d.i.c.k?"
"I don"t know, Jeanne. If I felt sure that Colonel Peyton would send you to our men, I would let you go on with him, but after the treatment given you, I don"t like to let you go back."
"No; let me stay with you, d.i.c.k. I feel as if I never wanted to see a rebel again."
"You are liable to see a good many of them before we are out of this,"
remarked d.i.c.k. "The woods are full of them. I fear----"
"What?" asked Jeanne, as the lad paused.
"For you, sister. It will be a long, hard journey. I wish I had known just how matters stood and I would have left you where you were. You have shown yourself a brave girl, and it will take all your courage and resolution now to stand up under the perils we will have to encounter. I wish we had some money. The Johnnies aren"t averse to taking our money for all their devotion to their cause. It would help us wonderfully."
"See here, d.i.c.k!" Jeanne took a roll of bills from her dress. "Will this be enough?"
"Where did you get it?" cried d.i.c.k in delight. "Why, this is fine!"
"Father gave it to me just before I left," answered Jeanne. "He little thought that it would help us both to get back to him. I know Aunt Clarisse would have taken it if she had remembered telling me to hide it."
"Father will have a settling with Uncle Ben and his wife," cried the boy, his eyes flashing. "I"d just like to meet the lady myself. I don"t think she"d like what she would hear!"
"I know it," and the girl looked at him admiringly. "I just feel as if my troubles were all over. What a soldier you are, d.i.c.k!"
"You are a pretty good one yourself," answered d.i.c.k. "I had no idea, Jeanne, that you could stand fire as you did on that transport. Why, I have known big men to be afraid in a battle."
"It"s the blood," observed the girl, sagely. "How could we be other than brave, when our ancestors fought in the Revolution? We just can"t help it."
d.i.c.k laughed.
"Ancestors don"t seem to help some fellows I know," he said. "You"d be surprised at some of the things they do. They play sick, fall in behind the rest of us, or do anything in the world to get out of the way of the bullets. The queer part of the whole thing is that those who expose themselves the most rarely get hurt while the shots seek the cowards."
Thus conversing the two pursued their journey. Darkness came on, and d.i.c.k proposed a halt and rest for the night.
"There are so many swamps," he said, "and so many of those things they call bayous that I like to see where I am going. You won"t be afraid to stay out all night, will you? There isn"t a house in sight, and it might not be safe for us to go to it if there were."
"I am not afraid with you, d.i.c.k. But it does look rather ghost-like, doesn"t it, with all that moss hanging from the trees?"
"Yes; the forest is not so fine as our own Adirondacks. I don"t like this country anyway. There are cypress swamps and malaria every time you turn round. Malaria has killed more of the boys than all the shots the rebs ever fired. You won"t get sick, will you?"
"I stood New Orleans in the summertime," said the girl, "and they said down there that anybody who could live there through the summer could live anywhere. But you have not told me how you came to be down here."
"Our regiment was sent to Corinth," answered d.i.c.k. "With a few others I was taken prisoner during the battle there. General Van Dorn sent us to Jackson, and from there we were to be taken by rail to Richmond, Virginia.
For some reason the orders were changed, and we were marched on foot to your camp. What they intended to do with us is more than I know. I tell you, I was glad to be free again."