"Where in the world did you get it?" demanded Tom, who was greatly astonished. "Man alive, he's my father."

"So I supposed. It was given to me by Captain Howard whose acquaintance I made aboard the Mollie Able, and he got it from a friend of his."

"My limited knowledge of the English language will not permit me to do this subject justice," declared Tom. He looked around for something to sit down on, and then leaned against the wall for support. "My father has heard of you and would have helped you at the risk of his life. He wouldn't go back on a Barrington boy any more than I would; but if you should be searched by rebels anywhere between here and Springfield, that letter would hang you. Burn it before you take the road to-morrow."

"If your father is so well known, I don't see why his neighbors haven't hung him before this time," said Rodney.

"It's safer to try the bushwhacking game, and he has been shot at three times already. He doesn't expect to live to see the end of these troubles, but he is like your cousin Marcy Gray-he doesn't haul in his shingle one inch. Burn that letter, I tell you."

"I didn't intend to present it unless I had to," replied Rodney. "Now, then, what brought you here? I thought you were hidden in the swamp along with some other refugees."

"So I was; but I came back on purpose to see if Merrick had heard anything from you. I was on my way to the house when I thought I would stop and look in here. I was hidden in the bushes when those Emergency men rode down the road. Of course they are going to the swamp, and I don't know whether I can get back there to-night or not. I wonder how they got on to my track so quick."

Rodney said that Merrick thought it was through old man Swanson. Tom replied that he had never heard of such a man, and Rodney went on to tell of his accidental meeting with him at the cross-roads, adding:

"Mr. Westall told him that I and my horse were all right, and not to be interfered with, and that he would make something by keeping a bright lookout for a boy without any boots on, and a roan colt. One of the party also told him that you were unarmed, but Swanson didn't take much stock in that. He declared that there were plenty of people in the country who would be mean enough to give you clothes and weapons for the asking, and I reckon he was about right. I gave you a revolver and I see some one else has furnished you with a pair of boots. Now, didn't you know, when you ran off with my horse, leaving yours for me to ride, that every man I met would take me for you?"

"That's a fact," replied Tom, "but I never thought of it before. But I couldn't get my horse out of the yard without scaring the others, and so I had to do the best I could. Now that I think of it, perhaps we had better let the trade stand a little while longer."

"Oh, do you?" exclaimed Rodney. "You have good cheek I must say."

"It isn't cheek at all, but a desire to keep you out of trouble as long as I can," answered Tom.

"Making me ride a horse that has been advertised all through the country as stolen property is a good way to keep me out of trouble, isn't it now?" said Rodney. "I never should have thought of it if you hadn't mentioned it."

"Hold on a bit," replied Tom. "No one in this section is looking for you now. You can take the road and keep it, and the horse you ride will not bring you into trouble; but if that roan colt shows his nose where anybody can see it, he'll be nabbed quicker'n a flash, and his rider too. See? As I am a little more experienced in dodging about in the bushes than you are, you had better let me take the risk."

"I never could look a white man in the face again if I should do that," answered Rodney. "Don't you know what will be done with you if you are caught?"

"I shan't run anymore risk than you did when you helped me get out of that corncrib," said Tom, reaching for his schoolmate's hand in the dark and giving it a hearty squeeze. "Don't you know what would be done to you if you were caught with that roan colt in your possession? You would be taken back to Mr. Westall's settlement, and when he saw that you were riding the same horse you rode when you came to Cedar Bluff landing, wouldn't he want to know where you got him? Can you think of any answers you could give that would satisfy him? I'll trade revolvers, if you want yours back (I know you've got one, for I heard you c.o.c.k it when I came to the door), but I really think you had better let me keep your horse a little while longer. I hear somebody coming," he added, stepping to the nearest crack and looking out. "It's Merrick. I can see his white shirt."

A moment later the owner of the stable came in, and was not a little surprised when he heard himself addressed by the boy whom he supposed to be snugly hidden in the deepest and darkest nook of the swamp. Tom told him why he had come back instead of keeping out of sight, and asked what had become of the squad of men he saw riding along the road a while before.

"They kept on as far as I could hear 'em," replied the farmer, "and if they left any one behind to watch the house, they were so sly about it that I never seen it."

"Of course it was broad daylight when Tom came to your house," said Rodney. "Well, how do you know but that man Swanson saw him when he went in?"

"I don't know it," replied Merrick. "But even if he did see Percival go in, these 'Mergency men won't never say a word to me about it, kase they know well enough that if they should hurt a hair of my head, some of my friends would bushwhack 'em to pay for it. They would send word over into the next county, and some fellers from there would ride over some dark night and set my buildings a-going, or pop me over as quick as they would a squirrel, if they could get a chance at me. That's the way we do business nowadays, and that's the reason we don't never go to the door when somebody rides up and hails the house after dark."

"Why, I wouldn't live in such a country," said Rodney.

"What would you do, if everything you had in the world was right here and you couldn't sell it and get out?" replied the farmer. "You'd stay and look out for it, I reckon, and make it as hot as you could for any one who tried to drive you away. But driving is a game two can play at," added Merrick, with a low chuckle; and Rodney noticed that he ceased speaking once in a while and turned his head on one side as if he were listening for suspicious sounds. "I don't say I have rode around of nights myself and I don't say I aint; but I do say for a fact that if you go over into the next county, you won't find so many men there who make a business of shooting Union folks as there used to be. Some parts of the kentry t'other side the ridge looks as though they had been struck by a harrycane that had blew away all the men and big boys."

This was what Captain Howard must have meant when he warned Rodney that every little community in the Southern part of the State was divided into two hostile camps. This was partisan warfare, and Rodney wanted to be a partisan.

"Is that the sort of partisan you are, Tom?" he inquired, when Merrick went out again to see if it would be safe for them to go into the kitchen and get supper. "I wish I had had sense enough to stay at home."

"I wish to goodness you had," said Tom honestly. "Not but that you've got as much sense as most boys of your age, but you know as well as I do that the Barrington fellows used to say you didn't always know what you were about. Why, when I heard you telling your story to Mr. Westall down there in Jeff's shanty, it was all I could do to keep from saying, right out loud, that such a piece of foolishness had never come under my notice before."

"Where would you be at this moment if I hadn't been in Jeff's cabin last night?" retorted Rodney.

"Well, that's a fact," said Tom thoughtfully. "About the time I felt that stick and revolver in my hands, I was mighty glad you were around; but as soon as I had used them, I wished from the bottom of my heart that you were safe back in your own State. But since you are here, I am going to do my level best for you; and that's the reason I am going to keep your horse a little longer. If I don't give him back to you some day, you can keep mine to remember me by."

"And every time I look at him, I shall be reminded that I have been taken for a horse-thief," added Rodney.

"You are no more of a horse-thief than I am. Let that thought comfort you. How is it, Merrick?" he went on, addressing himself to the farmer who at that moment glided into the stable with noiseless footstep. "Can we go in and get supper, or will it be safer for you to bring it out to us?"

"You are to come right in," was the farmer's welcome reply. "It'll be safe, for I have cleared the kitchen of everybody except the old woman. She's Secesh the very worst kind, but that needn't bother you none. She knows how to get up a good supper."

"That is a matter that has a deeper interest for us just now than her politics," said Tom. "But what shall we do with the horse?"

"As soon as I have showed you the way to the table I'll come back and stay with him so't he won't whinny," answered Merrick. "If them 'Mergency men heard him calling they might think it was one of my own critters and then agin they mightn't; so it's best to be on the safe side."

That the farmer was very much afraid that the horse might betray his presence to the guerrillas was evident from the way he acted. He took long, quick steps when he started for the house, gave the two boys a hurried introduction to his wife, saw them seated at the table and then ran out again. Mrs. Merrick remained in the room to wait upon them, and that was an arrangement that Tom Percival did not like; for although she proved to be a pleasant and agreeable hostess and never said a word about politics, Tom did not think it safe to talk too freely in her presence, and took the first opportunity that was offered to give Rodney a friendly warning.

"After you have been in this country a while, you will find that the women are worse rebels than the men," said he, in an undertone. "I don't suppose she would lead the Emergency men on to us, for that would get Merrick into trouble; but such things have been done in the settlement where I live. We can't do any more talking at present. Have another piece of the toast?"

"If I had pa.s.sed through as many dangers as you have and had as narrow an escape, I don't think I could eat as you do," said Rodney, who took note of the fact that his friend had not lost any of his appet.i.te since he left Barrington.

"I've had three good meals to-day, and a hearty lunch in the swamp; but I don't know when I have been so hungry," replied Tom; and then seeing that Rodney cast occasional glances toward the kitchen stove in which a bright fire was burning, he continued, in an earnest whisper, "This is as good a chance as you will have. Chuck 'em in, and you'll not regret it; but if you have no objections, I should like to read them before you do it. I'll keep mum."

Rodney knew that, and forthwith produced the letters, which had been a source of anxiety to him ever since they came into his possession, and also Mr. Graham's last telegram. Tom said he did not know either of the men whose names were signed to the letters that came through Captain Howard, but he was better acquainted with Mr. Westall and his four companions than he cared to be.

"The man who wrote this letter to Erastus Percival, my father, must be some one down the river who has had business dealings with him; but I don't know the gentleman," said he, after he had run his eye over the various doc.u.ments. "Put the whole business right into the stove. You don't want any such papers about you, for you don't know whom you are going to meet on the road. Trust to luck; stare Fate in the face, and your heart will be aisy if it's in the right place."

If Mrs. Merrick was surprised or suspected anything when Rodney put the letters into her stove and stood over them long enough to see them reduced to ashes, she made no remark. As he was about to return to his seat at the table there came a sound that arrested his steps, and brought Tom Percival out of his chair in a twinkling. The doors and windows were all closed (the curtains were pulled down as well, so that no one on the outside could see into the room), but the words, which were uttered in a m.u.f.fled voice, came distinctly to their ears:

"Hallo, the house!"

"There they are," whispered Tom, thrusting his hand into his breast pocket and glancing toward Rodney as if to a.s.sure himself that the latter could be depended on in an emergency.

"Sit down and keep perfectly quiet," said Mrs. Merrick, in a calm tone. "They are ready to shoot, and you mustn't move about for fear of throwing your shadow upon one of the window curtains."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. MERRICK STANDS GUARD.]

"Are they looking for your husband?" Rodney managed to ask.

"I suppose they are," answered the woman, who did not even change color.

"I will go to the door and find out."

"You mustn't," protested Rodney. "Mr. Merrick said he didn't take any notice of hails after dark."

"He doesn't, but I do," replied the wife. "Somebody must answer, or we couldn't live in this country a day longer."

"Do you recognize the voice?"

"Of course not," said Tom Percival. "They are strangers from some other county."

"Why can't we go with her and return their fire," exclaimed Rodney, as Mrs. Merrick left the room and moved along the wide hall toward the front door. "I'll not stay here like a b.u.mp on a log and let her be shot at, now I-"

"Come back here. Sit down and behave yourself or you'll play smash," said Tom, earnestly. "They'll not harm her. It's her husband they are after. Now listen."