These were all young men, generally the sons of the farmers of the vicinity, and doubtless adopted the political sentiments of their fathers. They were of a better cla.s.s than the ruffians morally.
"I did not expect to be besieged so soon, Major Lyon," said Lieutenant Gordon with a pleasant laugh, though he had never been in anything but a skirmish so far.
"We shall hardly be besieged, Lieutenant, for I think it will be a fight as soon as they get near enough to begin it," replied the planter, who was seated on a log, resting himself after the hard tramp he had had after the incendiaries. "But the enemy seem to be better prepared for business than they were when they came before, for you say that all you could see were armed with muskets."
"I could not see at the distance they were from us how well they were armed," added the officer.
"About every family in these parts has one or more persons who do something at hunting in the woods and swamps, and I reckon it would be hard to find a house without a fowling-piece or an old king"s arm in it," said Levi.
"They have all got guns of some sort," interposed Simeon Enbank, one of the recruits. "They have been drilling all the time for the last two days in one of Dr. Falkirk"s fields."
"I went over to look at them this morning, and the sight of them made me so mad that I came right over here and enlisted," added Robert Yowell.
"Good for you, Yowell!" exclaimed the officer. "Could you see what sort of guns they had?"
"I went in and looked at them; for they were not using them when I was there. They were in line, sort of taking steps, as they do in a dancing-school," answered the recruit.
"But the arms?"
"They were all sorts and kinds, mostly fowling-pieces and old flint-locks that might have been used in the Revolutionary War."
"But we are losing time," said Major Lyon impatiently. "If they had reached the bridge when you saw them, they will be here very soon."
"We don"t lose time while we are looking up the condition of the enemy.
I believe you are all ready for an attack, and we can do nothing till they reach the other side of the creek. But we can talk while we work,"
replied the officer. "I suppose these recruits will a.s.sist us in the defence of the place?"
The six men all volunteered to perform the service required.
"There are a dozen more men over in the grove," said Ben Decker; "for I had a talk with them as I came along from the old road. They said they expected to stay here all day, and they brought their dinners with them."
This was good news, and Deck was sent over after them. Major Lyon went to the desk, and wrote a brief note to Colonel Belthorpe. He had already ordered all the horses that could be saddled, and Frank was sent to deliver the message the planter had written to Lyndhall. Decker was provided with a steed for his mission, and a wagon was sent for the men a little later.
The negroes who had been slightly drilled in the use of the arms were ordered to report at the fort, and all the hands on the place were summoned from the fields, and held in readiness for anything required of them. The six recruits were drilled for a little while in the use of the breech-loaders. At the same time Levi did what he could to instruct the negroes, though nothing like a military organization could be attempted in the brief s.p.a.ce of time available for the purpose.
The twelve-pounders were loaded with canister this time; and Levi, with four of the hands, was placed in charge of the fort. Deck and Artie Lyon were sent down the creek to report the approach of the enemy, and found they had halted at the cross roads, evidently to prepare for the attack.
The boys climbed a big tree to obtain a better view of the proceedings of the ruffians, as they still called them, though they had reduced themselves to something like an organization.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BOYS CLIMBED A BIG TREE TO OBTAIN A BETTER VIEW."]
"There are a lot of wagons on the bridge," said Deck, who was the first to discover them. "What do you suppose that means?"
"There are three mule teams," added Artie, who had taken a higher place in the tree than his brother. "I see now; the wagons are loaded with boats."
"That means that they intend to cross the creek," replied Deck. "They ought to know this at the fort at once; and if you will study up the thing while I am gone, Artie, I will run up and carry the information."
"That is a good scheme; go ahead with it as quick as you can."
Deck descended the tree with a haste which threatened the safety of the bones of his body, and ran with all the speed he could command to Fort Bedford.
Lieutenant Gordon was drilling the eighteen recruits, the number from the grove on the other side of the creek having arrived, and Levi was training the negroes in the rear of the fort. All the men had been supplied with muskets and rounds of ammunition. No attention was given to facing, wheeling, or marching; for the use of the weapon was more important than any other detail in the brief s.p.a.ce of time available.
Deck reported to his father, who was observing the drill of the Africans, and in the hearing of Levi. It was not a mere accident that Squire Truman was seen approaching the fort from the bridge; for he had observed the movement among the ruffians in the village, and had seen that the column was moving by a roundabout road in the direction of the Rapids Bridge. He had no horse, but he had started at once on foot for Riverlawn, to apprise the planter of the danger that menaced him.
"It is time to do something," said the major, after he had welcomed the young lawyer. "The ruffians have a wagon-train loaded with boats in their rear, as my son has just informed me. We will adjourn to the fort and call in the lieutenant."
The information was imparted to the officer, and he joined the others in the fort.
"They intend to make it easy work for us to repel them," said the lieutenant with a smile.
"You are the only military man among us just now, Lieutenant, and I place you in command of all the forces," added Major Lyon. "Levi had some experience in the artillery many years ago."
"I don"t aspire to any command," added the overseer. "I will obey orders as a private; and that is all I ever was in the artillery."
"But I shall do something better for you," replied Captain Gordon, as they began to call him from this time. "You are a good soldier, Mr.
Bedford, and I shall make an officer of you at once. You will limber up your two guns, and haul them down to the boathouse. Have you any gunners?"
"Plenty of them, Captain; for I have trained enough of the hands to handle a full battery," answered Levi.
The planter had ordered both horses and wagons to be a.s.sembled in the rear of Fort Bedford, in readiness for any emergency. A pair of horses were promptly harnessed to each gun by the enthusiastic negroes whom the overseer had trained for battery service, and the artillery was soon on its way to the antic.i.p.ated field of action. A supply of ammunition was sent down by a wagon.
The major and the squire mounted a couple of steeds, and rode to the front of the fort, a horse having been sent for the use of the new commander. The recruits were standing in line, leaning on their weapons; but they seemed to be engaged in a lively conversation. As the lieutenant approached, Jim Keene, one of the recruits, stepped forward with an awkward attempt to be polite, and addressed the officer:--
"Captain Gordon, we are not going into the army with n.i.g.g.e.rs," said he in a very decided tone. "We ain"t going to drop down to the level of n.i.g.g.e.rs, and we want to take our names off that paper."
"Not a single negro has been enlisted, and will not be," replied Captain Gordon.
"But there is a squad of n.i.g.g.e.rs marching down to the creek with muskets in their hands," added Keene, pointing to the detachment that followed the guns, with Levi at their head, mounted on his favorite colt.
"If we had a sufficient force of white men here, we should not call in the negroes as fighting men," interposed Major Lyon. "That Home Guard that has just crossed the bridge over the river consists of over a hundred men, and this time they are armed with guns. We can muster only twenty-four white men at present to beat them off. The other night we called upon the hands to help defend the place because no others were to be had; and to some extent the same is true to-day. My house has been set on fire, and that mob are coming to burn my buildings and capture my wife and daughters. If the white man won"t fight for me, the negro will!"
"That alters the case," replied Keene. "We didn"t understand it before, and we will fight for you, one and all;" and all the other recruits shouted their acquiescence with one voice.
"No negroes will be enlisted for the army, for there are no orders to that effect," added Captain Gordon.
"That"s enough!" exclaimed Enbank. "We will stand by Major Lyon as long as there is a Secesher in sight."
"And you will find the negroes as stiff under fire as any white man ought to be," said Major Lyon, as he galloped down to the boathouse, followed by Squire Truman.
Artie, up in the tree, had kept his eyes wide open, but there was nothing more to be seen. Deck returned to him, and took his place near him. The enemy was still halted at the cross roads. The wagon-train had come up with the main body, and stopped in the road at the side of the creek. Whoever directed the movements of the column had evidently blundered, for the a.s.sailants did not appear to know what to do next.
"There is only one boat on each wagon, which is drawn by two mules,"
said Artie in the tree.
"They must have expected to get the boats into the water before they were discovered," added Deck. "Perhaps they would have done so if we had not happened to see them crossing the bridge when we were coming up after the hunt for the firebugs."
"There comes our artillery," continued Artie, as Levi"s section of a battery galloped down the descent from the fort.
At this moment a bullet from the enemy struck a branch of the tree just above Artie"s head. The boys had been discovered; and some one, with a better weapon than most of those with which the guards were armed, had fired upon them.