Part 24 (1/2)
”No, sir,” Wallace answered. ”We don't know anything about them. We were coming down the Missouri on a barge, straight from Dakota, when we were taken.”
”Well, Captain,” remarked the General, leaning back in his chair and glancing at Yeager. ”I don't see that your prisoners are of much value.”
”Mebbe not,” replied Yeager, somewhat crest-fallen. ”But you'd better see the feller that told me about 'em. Mebbe he knows somethin' more.”
General Clark sent out the corporal and in a moment the latter returned, leading Jim forcibly by the arm. The short, broad-shouldered guerilla followed them. The deck hand was trembling visibly and his eyes were wild but he was evidently striving to maintain his composure.
”What do you know about these prisoners?” demanded General Clark.
”I don't know nothin', General,” answered Jim, his voice shaking. ”Only they're Yanks, an' I thought they ought to be turned over. I didn't expect,--” he stopped short.
”Didn't expect what?”
”I--I didn't expect they'd be examined none, ner that I'd be dragged into it. I thought they'd--they'd be shot.”
”In the regular Confederate service we do not shoot prisoners of war,”
replied the General, turning a coldly significant glance upon Yeager.
”And why,” he continued, addressing Jim, ”didn't you want to be dragged into it, as you say?”
The deck hand's eyes wavered and he made no reply.
”What are you so alarmed about?” persisted the General, leaning forward and watching him suspiciously.
Al cleared his throat.
”Pardon me, General Clark,” said he, ”but I believe you will find on inquiry that this man is a deserter from your service.”
Jim started as if he had been shot.
”It ain't so!” he cried, wildly. ”I ain't never been in the Confederate army.” He made an involuntary step toward the door, but his guard pulled him back firmly.
”Why do you think that?” asked General Clark of Al.
”He was a deck hand on the boat I ascended the Missouri on,” replied Al, ”and I had trouble with him. That's doubtless why he hoped to have me shot. I judge that he was in the Confederate service only by threats and boasts that he made to me, and he was probably in an Arkansas regiment.”
”An Arkansas regiment?” the General asked. ”We have a whole division of Arkansas troops with us,--f.a.gan's.”
A curious, gurgling gasp came from Jim's throat. His face was chalky.
”I never heerd o' f.a.gan,” he sputtered. ”Ner I ain't been in Arkansaw in all my life.”
”You are not convicted,” General Clark said, calmly. ”But the matter is worth investigating.”
He called the sergeant of the headquarters guard and directed him to have Jim placed in close custody, and the deck hand was led away, reeling and apparently almost fainting. Al never saw him again; and though by chance he heard long afterward that Jim had, in fact, been in an Arkansas regiment, he could never ascertain whether the young fellow paid the penalty of death for his violation of his oath of enlistment.
When Jim had been led away, the General turned to Al and asked,
”You wear no uniform. Why not?”
”I am not enlisted in the army, sir. I am too young.”