Part 17 (1/2)
Rodney sat down in the nearest chair, rested the hand that held his revolver on the table, and waited and listened with as much patience as he could command.
CHAPTER XI.
RODNEY MAKES A TRADE.
”You are a pretty partisan, you are,” whispered Tom Percival, while they were waiting for Mrs. Merrick to open the front-door. ”Those men outside are friends of yours, and yet you stand ready to fight them.”
”I don't claim friends.h.i.+p with any cowardly bushwhacker,” answered Rodney hotly. ”I don't collogue [a.s.sociate] with any such.”
”Then you'll have to do one of two things,” said Tom. ”Go home and stay there, or else join the Confederate army. Nearly every man in Missouri is a bushwhacker. Now listen.”
Tom did not follow his own suggestion, for when he heard the front door creak on its hinges, he laid down his revolver and covered his ears with his hands. This made Rodney turn as white as a sheet and get upon his feet again, fully expecting to hear the roar of a shotgun, followed by the clatter of buckshot in the hall; but instead of that, there came the calm, even tones of Mrs. Merrick's voice inquiring:
”What is it?”
”If I had that woman's pluck I'd be a general before this thing is over,” said Rodney, ”I've always heard that a woman had more courage than a man and now I know it.”
”Listen,” repeated Tom, who had by this time taken his hands down from his ears.
There was no immediate response, for the party at the gate had looked for somebody else to answer their hail. Presently the same m.u.f.fled voice inquired:
”Is Mr. Merrick to home?”
”He was a few minutes ago, but he is not in now,” said his wife. ”Have you any word to leave for him?”
”No, I don't reckon we have. We'll ketch-we'll see him some other time.”
”Who shall I say called?”
”It don't matter. We're friends of his'n who wanted to see him on business. Goodnight.”
”Good-night,” replied Mrs. Merrick, as if her suspicions had not been roused in the slightest degree; and then she shut the door and came back into the kitchen. She was pale now and trembling; and Rodney made haste to offer her a chair while Tom poured out a gla.s.s of water.
”I told you they wouldn't hurt her,” he found opportunity to say to Rodney. ”But if Merrick had gone to the door he would have been full of buckshot now.”
”They might as well shoot her as to scare her to death,” replied Rodney.
”This is a terrible state of affairs.”
”I believe you. And we haven't seen the beginning of it yet. What have they got against your husband any way, Mrs. Merrick?”
The woman kept her eyes fastened upon Tom's face while she drank a portion of the water he had poured out for her, and then she handed back the gla.s.s with the remark:
”Mr. Merrick is Union and so are you.”
”How do you know that?” demanded Tom. ”Has he told you my story?”
”He hasn't said a word; but I have been over to a neighbor's this afternoon, and while I was there, I saw you and a roan horse go into our cow-lot. A little while afterward old Swanson rode up and told us about a Yankee horse-thief who was going through the country, trying to reach Springfield. That shows how fast news travels these times. And that isn't all I know,” she added, nodding at Rodney. ”You are as good a Confederate as I am.”
”Then how does it come that I am colloguing with a Yankee horse-thief?” exclaimed Rodney, who wanted to learn how much the woman really knew about him and his friend.