Part 21 (1/2)
Rodney said all this at a venture and was overjoyed to hear the lieutenant say, as he thrust out his hand:
”Shake. I ought to know Rodney Gray, for I have often heard the sergeant speak of him as the hottest rebel in school; but I don't remember that I ever heard him mention Barton's name.”
”He wasn't as intimate with Tom as he was with me,” Rodney explained.
”There was a difference in their politics.”
”That accounts for it. Graham was neutral until his State moved, and Barton here was an ardent Secessionist from the start. That's just the way my captain and I stand now. I began shouting for Southern rights as soon as Carolina went out, and he didn't.”
”No, d.i.c.k held back,” said Tom, ”but Rodney did not. He was the first academy boy to hoist the Stars and Bars. But now, captain, say that you will not harm these folks. They haven't done anything, and as for the strong language they used toward us a while ago-we don't mind that.”
”Who's your authority for saying that they haven't done anything?” demanded the captain. ”You seem to think that they are the most innocent, inoffensive people in the world; but I know that is not characteristic of Unionists in this part of the country. How do you know but that they have ambushed scores of Confederates?”
”We don't know it; and seeing that you don't know it either, why not give them the benefit of the doubt and let their neighbors see that they get their deserts? Why not be satisfied with what you have already done? You burned two houses last night.”
”I am aware of it. The men to whom they belonged are noted bushwhackers, and I went miles out of my way to teach them that they had better let our people alone-that burning and shooting are games that two can play at. But I have no heart for more work of that sort, and so I'll not trouble these men since you seem to be so tender-hearted toward them.”
”Thank you, sir; thank you,” replied Rodney, heartily. ”Now will you pa.s.s us out, and send some men to the stable with us to get our horses?”
”I'll go with you myself,” said the lieutenant; but as he was about to lead the way out of the house he stopped to hear what his captain had to say to Mr. and Mrs. Truman.
”We shall not touch your property, and you may thank these two 'traitors' for it,” said the officer; and when he said ”traitor,” he waved his hand toward Rodney and Tom and paused to note the effect of his words.
The men, after the first shock of surprise had pa.s.sed, seemed ready to drop, Mr. Truman leaned heavily against the nearest wall, and his wife, who had borne up as bravely as the best of them, behaved as women usually do under such circ.u.mstances. She buried her face in her handkerchief and sobbed violently.
”I hope you gentlemen will remember my forbearance and be equally lenient toward any Confederate who may chance to fall into your power,” continued the captain, whose calm, steady voice had grown husky all on a sudden. ”We are not a bad lot, but we are going to govern this State as we please, and you will save yourselves trouble if you will stop fighting against us. You'll have to do it sooner or later. Of course I shall be obliged to deprive you of your guns, for you might be tempted to shoot them at some loyal Jackson man when we are not here to protect him. I have saved these young gentlemen from your clutches, and as that was what I came for, I will bid you good-evening.”
Rodney Gray did not hear much of this polite address for a new fear had taken possession of him, and he took the opportunity to say to his friend Tom:
”You go with the lieutenant after the horses, and I will stay with the captain to say a word in your defense in case any of these Union people happen to speak your name, or let out anything else you would rather keep hidden.”
Tom thought this a good suggestion. It would certainly be disagreeable, and perhaps dangerous, to have the captain tell him when he returned with the horses that he wasn't Tom Barton at all-that his real name was Percival, that he was the commander of a company of Union men who had offered to help Lyon at St. Louis, and all that. While Tom did not think the captain would believe such a story if it were told him, it might suggest to him some leading questions that the boys would find it hard to answer. So he left Rodney to act as a sort of rear guard, and went off to the stable with the lieutenant.
”Did you really know that we were in the house?” Tom asked, when he was alone with the officer. ”If you did, it can't be that Merrick's boy told you.”
”Of course he didn't. He would have kept it from us if he could, but all the same the information came from him in the first place. The blacks in these parts are all Union-no one need waste his breath telling me different-and that scamp of a boy lost no time in spreading it among the Union men in the neighborhood that there were a couple of 'disguised rebels,' as he called you and Gray, putting up at Truman's house. That was the way those five fellows came to get on your trail; but, as good luck would have it, the darkey told the story to too many. Not being as well acquainted in this settlement as he probably is in his own, he told it to a Jackson man, who rode to our camp and told us of it. If it hadn't been for that we should be miles away now; but of course we couldn't think of going off and leaving some of our own people in the hands of the enemy.”
”You rendered us a most important service,” replied Tom; and he told nothing but the truth when he said it. ”It is necessary that I should go home on business, but Rodney Gray wants to enlist in an independent command as soon as he can get the chance. Didn't you speak of d.i.c.k Graham as a sergeant?”
”May be so. That's what he is.”
”Does he belong to your company?”
”No; but he belongs to our regiment, and that's how I came to get acquainted with him. He's got more friends than any other fellow I know of, and he will be glad to see an old schoolmate once more. I have heard him tell of Rodney Gray and the sc.r.a.pes he got into by speaking his mind so freely, and I am not the only one in the regiment who thinks that the Barrington Military Academy is a disgrace to the town and State in which it is located. The citizens ought to have turned out some night and torn it up root and branch.”
”They would have had a good time trying it,” said Tom. ”The boys punched one another's head on the parade ground now and then, but it wasn't safe for an outsider to interfere with our private affairs.”
”Why, the Confederates wouldn't fight for the Union boys, would they?” exclaimed the lieutenant. ”That's a little the strangest thing I ever heard of. We don't do business that way in Missouri, and I could see that our boys didn't like it when you and Gray stuck up for those Yankee sympathizers back there in the house.”
Perhaps they wouldn't have liked it either, if they had known how Tom and Rodney had ”stuck up” for each other ever since they met at Cedar Bluff landing. But that was a piece of news that Tom did not touch upon.
He intended to reserve it for d.i.c.k Graham's private ear.