XII

As he said, so it was; he hustled everything before him, permitting me to keep my horse and allowing Whistling Jim to go along. "Good-by, mother," he said; "I'm sorry to leave you in such a place as this. I suppose you are waiting for Major Whiskers." He laughed gayly as he said this, and his mother slapped him playfully as she kissed him.

He invited me to ride with him at the head of his little squad of troops, saying that when a colonel started out to command a corporal's guard he a.s.suredly needed a.s.sistance. He was perhaps thirty years old, but he had a tremendous fund of animal spirits, so that he had all the ways of a gay youth of twenty. He paid no more attention to the man who had been knocked about by Whistling Jim than if he had been a log of wood, and yet he was very tender-hearted. Whatever was in the line of war appealed to his professional instincts. War was his trade, and he seemed to love it; and he had a great relish for the bustle and stir that are incident thereto.

His sister rode in the top-buggy in which I had first seen her, and she might have been the commander of the men, judging from the way she gave instructions. She seemed to know all the roads, for she went ahead without the slightest hesitation. She was driving a good horse, too; his trot was sufficient to keep our horses in a canter; and whenever he heard us coming up behind him he would whisk the buggy away as if he scorned company. Perhaps this was due to the little lady who was driving him.

I had no grudge against her, heaven knows, but somehow I resented my present plight, for which I thought she was responsible. She had given me fair warning, but she should have known that it was my purpose to carry out the orders of General Forrest; and if I was to be warned at all she should have told me the precise nature of the danger. In that case, I could not only have escaped, but I could have been instrumental in the capture of her brother and his whole party. Perhaps she knew this--and perhaps this was why she would give me no definite information.

But if she knew at all she must have known everything; her brother must have come in response to a summons from her or her mother. In any case I had been tricked--I had been made a fool of--and after what I had done for her, I felt that I had a right to feel aggrieved. Colonel Ryder observed my sullenness and commented on it.

"Don't be down-hearted, my boy. It is the fortune of war; there is no telling when it may turn its sunny side to you. In your place I should whistle and sing and make the best of it. Still, I know how you feel, and I sympathize with you."

"I should not have gone to that house last night," he went on, "but I knew that my mother was there, and I had received information that one of our scouts by the name of Leroy was in great danger of capture. What I did discover was that Miss Ryder had been captured." He laughed as he said this, and gave me a peculiar look.

"As to Leroy," I asked, "was he at that house? I am very much interested in knowing, for General Forrest detailed me to capture him."

"Under the circ.u.mstances, you acquitted yourself wonderfully well, and General Forrest has no right to be displeased with you," remarked Colonel Ryder.

"But you have not answered my question," I said.

"In the nature of things," he replied, enigmatically, "I prefer not to tell you. Of one thing you may be sure--Leroy is not likely to bother the rebels for some time to come. I think you have put him out of business, as the boys say."

"Then Leroy must be the name of the man that tried to capture me at the tavern. It was the negro that put him out of business."

"But Leroy is a very dear friend of mine," laughed the Colonel, "and you may be sure I should not have left him there. You observed, of course, that I was very attentive to the man your negro had whipped."

He was still laughing, and I could not imagine for the life of me why he was tickled.

XIII

We rode along without adventure of any kind, though I momentarily expected to hear the tramp of Forrest's outriders behind us. They never came, and about ten o'clock--my stomach was my clock in this instance, for I had had no breakfast--we suddenly turned off from the main road and plunged into the shadows of the finest wood I had ever seen. There were giant chestnuts, giant poplars, giant oaks, and giant pines. They were so large that human beings seemed small and insignificant beside them, and I realized that we were in the primeval forest.

The thought, however, did not satisfy my hunger, and I wondered when and where a halt was to be called and rations parcelled out. It is a vexatious feeling for the young to feel the pangs of hunger, and I was not used to a long fast. My feelings were relieved by Whistling Jim, who informed me that he had placed a very substantial ration in my holsters; and I am free to say that, after Colonel Ryder, the negro was the most thoughtful and considerate person I have ever seen. He had an easy explanation for it, and spoke of it very lightly, remarking that all he had to do was to think of himself first "an' de white folks nex'."

In turning into the wood, we were following the lead of the little lady in the top-buggy, and I think that Colonel Ryder had no idea whither she was leading him. Yet he yielded himself and his men to her guidance with a confidence that few soldiers would have displayed. We had come very rapidly until we turned out of the main road, and then we went along more leisurely. This gave me time to overcome my natural stupidity, for I finally realized that our rapid movements on the main road were intended to place us beyond the reach of Forrest's advance guard.

The by-way that we were now following appeared to be little used, yet it was a wide road and a good one, and probably served as the means of communication between isolated farms, or it may have led to some lonely grist-mill which had been built for the convenience of that thinly populated region. Though it was but little used, it was plain to the eye, and I thought with a smile that if Captain Bill Forrest's company should happen to have any leisure a dozen or more of them would be sure to see where it led, in which event----

The smile faded away as soon it came, for I thought of the little lady in the top-buggy who was driving ahead with so much confidence. She would be safe in any event, but what would she think of me if her brother should be captured or killed? I shrunk from facing such a contingency; I shrunk without knowing why. Being a young fellow, and feeling my importance as I have never felt it since, I imagined she would hold me responsible. I had interfered with her plans in more ways than one, and I felt that she owed me a grudge that would grow to enormous proportions should any harm come to her brother.

I was suddenly recalled to the affairs of the moment by hearing the screams of a woman, followed by a rifle-shot. I saw Jane Ryder urging her horse forward, and, without waiting to see what Colonel Ryder proposed to do, I put spurs to my horse, followed by Whistling Jim. The scream of the woman had sent a cold chill all through me, and I was in no humor for waiting to see what the others would do. I thought I heard shouts behind me, but I paid no attention to them. I turned my horse to the left and headed him in the direction from which the sounds had come.

Keeping a sharp eye ahead, I soon came in sight of a cabin sitting lonely and forlorn in the middle of a small clearing. I saw more than this, for three men were engaged in a desperate effort to batter down the door. My horse bore me past the little lady in a flash, although she was using the whip. With a cry of "Halt and surrender!" I rode at the men pistol in hand. They whipped around the house without turning their heads, and ran off into the thick undergrowth, where it would have been both useless and dangerous to pursue them.

They left one of their number on the ground, the victim of the rifle-shot we had heard. He begged l.u.s.tily for both mercy and water. If he had been compelled to choose between the two I think he would have taken water. I gave him my canteen, which he emptied at a gulp and called for more. There was a strange silence in the house--a silence in decided contrast to the screams I had heard, and I wondered if the wretches had shot the woman. I started to knock on the door with the b.u.t.t of my pistol, but Jane Ryder was before me.

"Only children do such foolish things," she exclaimed, and I thought she had scorn in her voice. "Sally! Sally Rodgers! Open the door if you are alive! Don't you know me? Your friends are here."

"Pardon me!" I said, pushing past Jane Ryder as the door opened. For a moment I could see nothing whatever, not even the woman who had opened the door, but when my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom that pervaded the house--all the windows were closed--I saw the big Irishman whom I had met at the tavern a few nights before. He was sitting very quietly in the chimney-corner, but I observed that he had me covered with his rifle. I stared at him without a word, and he was equally as silent, but something in the situation--or in his face, for he had as pleasing a countenance as I have ever seen--caused me to laugh.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He had me covered.]

"'Tis a long mile from a joke," he declared. "Ye see before ye Private O'Halloran av the sharpshooters. Wan av us is a prisoner, an' I'm thinkin' it's not meself."

"It is not given to every man," I replied, "to be taken prisoner while he is still a prisoner. You will have to speak to Colonel Ryder."

The woman had come from behind the door to greet Jane Ryder, and now she was giving her all the details of her troubles, her voice pitched in a very high key. Meanwhile, half a dozen children in various stages of undress swarmed from under the bed and stood staring at us. "The sound of the woman's screams," said I, turning to Jane Ryder, "caused me to forget that I am a prisoner. I hope your brother doesn't think that I made that an excuse for running away."

"And why shouldn't a prisoner escape--if he can?" she asked, after a moment's hesitation. "You'll never have a better opportunity to rejoin your command. You are not under parole, and you are under no obligations to my brother. You have only to mount your horse, beckon to your negro, and follow the path you will find at the back of the house.

It leads by a grist-mill. A part of your command has already pa.s.sed on the road beyond the mill, but if you will go now you will fall in with the rear-guard."

"Beggin' pardon," said O'Halloran, taking off his hat to the lady, "the lad has engagements wit' me. He's me twenty-ninth, all told, an'

there's luck in odd numbers. If it's all the same to you, mum, he'll stay here."

"But it's not all the same to me, Mr. O'Halloran," she said, turning to the Irishman. "I prefer that he should go."

His eyes grew bigger as he stared at the lady. "Oh----" he exclaimed, and then paused with his mouth open. "Niver did I hope to see me gallant Captain in this rig. It doesn't become ye at all. The trimmin's make ye a fut shorter, an' be me soul! ye was short enough to begin wit'." His amazement made her laugh, but she made no reply.

"Are you going?" she inquired, turning to me. I hesitated. Undoubtedly here was an opportunity, but something or other--some feeling or sentiment--call it what you will--held me back.

"Not now," I said, finally. "Some other time, perhaps, but not now." I did not realize at the time why I held back--why I refused to be free.

She turned away from me with a petulant shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say that she was no longer under obligations to me for preventing her capture by the party that had raided the tavern. The big Irishman, who had evidently recognized the little lady as a person of some importance, went so far as to try to persuade me to make my escape, or, rather, to take advantage of the escape I had already made.

"If ye're stayin' thinkin' he's a woman, don't do ut. Don't stop for to say good-by, but straddle yure horse an' be off wit' ye."

But the little lady had a mind of her own, as I was shortly to discover. After she had talked with the woman for a few minutes, she turned to me.

"Will you ride with me a few miles?" she inquired. "Your negro can lead your horse."

I agreed with such promptness and eagerness that a faint tinge of color came into her face. But, in the bustle of getting away, I paid little attention to her appearance until we were on the move again, and then I observed that she was very pale. I thought it was cold, and said so.

"The wind is certainly chilly," she replied, and then, moved by embarra.s.sment, or stirred by the motherly instinct that const.i.tutes more than half the charm of womanhood, she leaned over and tucked the lap-robe about my knees, and then fell back in her place, laughing gleefully, as a child might have laughed. Indeed, for a woman grown, this little lady had more of the cunning tricks of childhood than anyone I had ever seen--the cute little ways that endear children to those who love them. At the time, this fact did not add to my happiness, for, what with her womanliness and her childishness, she presented a problem that puzzled and dazzled me, for my mind was wofully lacking in the nimbleness necessary to follow the swift changes of her moods.

She had turned the buggy into the woods, and was driving along with no road to guide her. I had not the remotest idea whither she was carrying me, but by way of saying something I protested against the way she was pushing her horse. "You will need him after to-day," I explained.

"I have reason to be in a hurry," she said. "Horses are cheap enough with us. They are furnished by the Government."

"Still, he is a fairly good horse," I remarked, "and he deserves some consideration on his own account."

"Do you think so?" she cried. "I am sure you are very kind--to horses.