“But how is it you are here now; I thought you knew nothing about the army,” said Ralph.
“I didn't when I last saw you, but I joined the Southern army the next week. I am in the cavalry service.”
Ralph's curiosity would never be silenced. “Do you like it?” he asked.
“Yes, and no. I have been in several engagements, but the hardest blow I had was when they carried my father home dead, and I asked for a furlough, to go home to see him once more, and was refused.”
Here the boy nearly broke down. Ralph's sympathies were aroused at once. He knew not what to say. But Charlie recovered himself soon, and continued—“You see how I'm placed now. I shall have to take you into our camp.”
“I wish Bill were here!” Ralph blurted out. “He wouldn't see me taken prisoner so easily.”
To him Bill represented the sum total of all knowledge, and he felt confident of his ability to rescue him, even in the face of the danger that now menaced him.
A low whistle startled both boys. A few feet from them, stretched lengthwise of a fallen tree, lay Bill, who raised his head, which was bleeding freely.,
“I've a good mind to take you both prisoners!” he said, jocosely. “What are you exchanging courtesies for? The boy's right. Unless we can get away in a very big hurry, he can land us both in the rebel camp, and then it'll be all over with us. You'd better be planning each other's escape, and then you'll both be likely to be court-martialed!”
“It's my luck, isn't it? I can't blame Charlie if he does take me. But I haven't got anything against him.”