"Did you stop at Cairo on your way up?"
"The Able was there perhaps half an hour."
"Then I can see through some of it as plain as daylight," exclaimed Nels, straightening up on his nail keg and shaking his hand at Jeff. "He was at Cairo long enough to change his clothes, swap hosses and have his whiskers shaved off; but why he should have the cap"n of the Able set him ash.o.r.e here at this landing, beats my time. Don"t it your"n?" There were signs of excitement in the cabin, and Rodney felt the cold chills creeping over him. The wood-cutters were wofully ignorant, quite as open to reason as so many wooden men would have been, and if they suspected him of trying to play some trick upon them, Rodney could not imagine how he should go to work to set them right. He glanced at their scowling faces and told himself that he would not have been in greater danger if he had been a prisoner in the hands of the Yankees.
"I should like to know what you mean by this foolishness?" exclaimed Rodney, growing excited in his turn.
"Mebbe you"ll find that there aint no great foolishness about it before we"ve got through with you," answered Nels; and Rodney noticed that one of the wood-cutters moved his seat so as to get between him and the door.
"I shall know more about that after you have told me who and what you take me for," continued Rodney. "Do you think you ever saw me before?"
"Well, as to your face and clothes we might be mistook," replied Nels, slowly. "But you had oughter hid that watch chain before you come back amongst we-uns."
He reached out to lay hold of the article in question, but the angry boy pushed his hand away.
"This watch and chain were a birthday present from my mother four years ago," said he, taking the watch from his pocket and unhooking the chain, "and the fact is recorded on the inside of the case, if you have sense enough to read it, which I begin to doubt. You are at liberty to look at them, but you mustn"t try to get out of the door with them."
Nels took the articles in question and looked fixedly at Rodney, as if he did not know whether to smile at him or get angry. He decided on the former course when one of his companions said, in an audible whisper:
"You sartingly be mistook, Nels. That abolition hoss-thief was a mighty palavering sort of chap, but he didn"t have no such grit."
"Is that what you take me for," exclaimed Rodney,-"a horse-thief and an abolitionist besides? You certainly are mistaken, for I haven"t got that low down in the world yet. Jeff, you are the only man in the party who seems to have a level head on his shoulders, and I wish you would explain this thing to me. Begin at the beginning so that I may know just how the case stands."
Before Jeff could reply to the request one of the small army of hunting dogs which found shelter in the wood-cutters" camp set up a yelp, the rest of the pack joined in, and for a minute or two there was a terrific hubbub. When it lulled a little the hail rang out sharp and clear from some place in the surrounding woods:
"Hallo the house! Don"t let your dogs bite!"
The words brought all the wood-choppers to their feet and sent all except two of them-Nels and the man who had taken his seat near the door-out into the darkness. These remained behind in obedience to a sign from Jeff, and Rodney knew that they meant to keep an eye on him.
"Who"s out there?" he inquired.
"Don"t you recognize his voice?" asked Nels in reply. "There"s more"n one of "em, and they are the men who have been hunting for you for a week past."
"I am glad to hear it," said Rodney. "Perhaps they will be able to clear away some of the ridiculous suspicions you seem to have got into your heads concerning me."
"Get out, ye whelps," shouted Jeff, when he stepped out of the door; whereupon the dogs ceased their clamor and slunk away behind the cabin to escape the clubs he threw among them to enforce obedience to his order. "Come on, strangers. They won"t pester you."
Then came a tramping of hoofs, as if a small body of cavalry was making its way through the bushes, and a minute afterward Rodney could look through the open door and see half a dozen men dismounting from their horses. He saw Jeff exchange a few hasty words with the tall, black-whiskered man who was the first to touch the ground, and heard the exclamations of surprise which the latter uttered as he listened to them. He could not understand what the man said, but the woodcutter near the door did, for he called out:
"He"s come back sure"s you live, and Nels has got his watch to prove it.
He knowed him the minute he seed the chain that"s fast to it."
"Well, if that is the case, whom have we got here?" said the black-whiskered man; and this time Rodney heard the words very plainly. "Where is he? Let me have a look at him."
Jeff waved his hand toward the door and the man stepped in and faced Rodney, who arose to his feet and met his gaze without flinching. One glance brought from him a sigh of relief. He had an intelligent man to talk to now-one who could be reasoned with.
"There"s the watch that has brought suspicion upon me in a way I cannot understand," said Rodney, nodding toward Nels, who promptly handed it over. "Will you be kind enough to open it and read the inscription you will find on the inside of the case."
The man took the watch, and while he was opening it kept his eyes fastened upon Rodney"s face. He seemed both amused and angry.
"Jeff," he exclaimed at length. "I never knew before that you were such a blockhead. There is about as much resemblance between this young gentleman and that horse-thief outside as there is between you and me."
"But Mr. Westall, just look at the chain," protested Jeff.
"But, Mr. West-all, just look at the chain," protested Jeff.
"Well, look at the chain. You"re a Jackson man, I suppose?" he added, nodding at Rodney.
"Every day in the week," replied the boy. "And that"s what brought me up here from Louisiana. I belong to a company of partisans; but our Governor wouldn"t take us the way we wanted to go, and here I am. I want to find Price as soon as I can. Run your eye over that telegram, if you please, and then read this letter."
While the man, who had been addressed as Mr. Westall, was reading the doc.u.ments Rodney pa.s.sed over to him, his four companions came into the cabin bringing with them a fifth, at the sight of whom Rodney Gray started as if he had been shot.
CHAPTER VII.
THE EMERGENCY MEN.
"Great Scott!" was Rodney Gray"s mental e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "That is Tom Percival if I ever saw him."
If his own father had suddenly been brought into the cabin a prisoner in the hands of armed men, the Barrington boy could not have been more amazed. He winked hard and looked again, but his eyes had not deceived him; and even if there had been the slightest doubt in his mind regarding the ident.i.ty of the prisoner who had been denounced as "an abolition horse-thief," it would have vanished when he saw the expression that came upon Tom"s face the moment their eyes met. Tom was one of d.i.c.k Graham"s firm friends, but while a student at the Barrington Academy he had often declared that if d.i.c.k ever so far forgot himself as to enlist in the rebel army, he (Tom) would go into the Union service on purpose to whip him back into a proper frame of mind; and his being there a prisoner led Rodney to believe that he had kept his promise, so far as enlisting was concerned. But there was one thing about it: Tom might be a Union soldier, but he was neither an abolitionist nor a horse-thief.
"It is Percival, sure enough, but what in the name of sense and Tom Walker is he doing here?" was the next question that came into Rodney"s mind.
His first impulse was to seize his old schoolmate by the hand, proclaim his friendship for him and a.s.sure Mr. Westall and the rest that they had committed the worst kind of a blunder-that they had made as great a mistake in arresting this boy for a horse-thief, as Nels and his fellow wood-cutters had made in suspecting him of being Tom Percival, simply because he happened to have in his possession a watch chain that somewhat resembled Tom"s. But two things restrained him; the first was the reflection that by following this course he would put it entirely out of his power to help Tom if the opportunity was offered, and the second was the way in which Tom himself looked and acted. He didn"t appear to know Rodney at all. The expression of joy and surprise that first overspread his countenance vanished as if by magic, and from that time forward he gave as little attention to his old friend as he might have given to an utter stranger. Rodney was quick to take the hint and governed himself accordingly.
"Percival always did have a level head on his shoulders," said the latter, resuming his seat upon the nail keg and placing himself as far as possible out of reach of Tom"s gaze, "and he"s got more pluck than any other fellow I ever saw. He needs it, poor fellow, if Captain Howard told the truth when he said that every little community in the State is divided into two hostile camps. But his father owns slaves, and Tom never stole a horse."
It so happened that all the inmates of the cabin were too much interested in what Mr. Westall was doing to notice the swift glance of recognition that pa.s.sed between the two boys when Tom Percival was brought in. They were waiting to hear what he had to say regarding the papers Rodney had given him to read.
"I suppose you are acting is a sort of advance agent for your company to see what arrangements you can make with General Price?" said Mr. Westall at length.
"No, sir. I am acting on my own hook, and without any regard to the course the company may see fit to take," replied Rodney. "The members don"t want to be sworn into the service of the Confederate States, and the proposition to leave Louisiana in a body and offer ourselves to Price, was voted down. I do not know what the rest of the boys will do, but I am going to join the Missouri State militia if they will take me."
"Oh, they"ll take you fast enough," said Mr. Westall, with a laugh.
"They have already taken everybody they can get their hands on without stopping to inquire what State he is from. We five are some of Jeff Thompson"s Emergency men."
"I don"t think I ever heard of such men," said Rodney doubtfully.
"Probably not. You don"t need them down in Louisiana, and we may not have much use for them here; though, to judge from the exploits of this young man Percival, we may be called out oftener than we expected to be."
Rodney hoped that Mr. Westall would go on to tell what his friend Tom had been guilty of to get himself into such a sc.r.a.pe, and what they intended doing with him now that they had got him into their power; but in this he was disappointed. The man handed back Mr. Graham"s telegram with the remark that he had never heard of a person of that name, and then proceeded to read the letter of introduction, which was addressed to a well-known Confederate of the name of Perkins, who lived somewhere in the neighborhood of Springfield.
"I am acquainted with this man Perkins in a business way," said Mr. Westall, after he had run his eye over the letter, "and know him to be strong for Jeff Davis and the cause of Southern independence. He will treat you as though you were one of the royal blood if you can only get to him; but there"s the trouble. He lives in the southwestern part of the State, and that"s a right smart piece from here."
"I know it; but I have a good horse somewhere outside," answered Rodney.
"So I supposed; but you can"t depend upon your horse to tell you whether you are talking to a Yankee sympathizer or an honest Confederate, can you? The ride won"t amount to anything, but you have a tough bit of country to go through. Your short experience right here among friends will serve to show you how very suspicious everybody is. We don"t trust our nearest neighbors any more, and so you can imagine what we think of a stranger, especially if he happens to own a watch chain that looks something like one that is worn by a horse-thief," said Mr. Westall, smiling at the boy as he handed his property back to him. "Now, Jeff, how could you have made such a mistake? Can"t you see that they don"t at all resemble each other?"
"Now that I see them together I can," was Jeff"s answer. "But don"t he look a trifle as that thief might look if his duds was changed and his whiskers took off?"
Rodney thought from the first that his old schoolmate did not look just as he did the last time he saw him, and now he knew the reason. To a very slight mustache Tom Percival, since leaving the Barrington Academy, had added a pair of what the students would have called "side-boards;" but they were so very scant that they could not by any possibility be looked upon as a disguise. Mr. Westall laughed at the idea.