"Sure; we could have licked them easily."
"Well, I am not sorry we left. I am not aching for a fight against such odds; but if they overtake us, we will show them what we can do. What puzzles me is, who gave us the warning?"
"Give it up," said Dan.
Harry was now called, and told what had happened. "You take Jack and Bruno and guard the rear. Don't let those fellows get close to us, without our knowing it."
"No danger, as long as Bruno is alive," laughed Harry.
"What about the front?" asked Dan. "We may run into those fellows who have gone to head us off."
"They haven't had time to head us off yet," said Lawrence, "and before they meet us, I want to teach those fellows in the rear a lesson."
The horses began to show signs of weariness, and, coming to a settler's cabin, around which grew a fine field of corn, Lawrence, concluded to halt, rest and feed the horses, and allow the men to make some coffee. There were some fine pigs running around, and two of these were slaughtered. The owner of the corn and hogs made strenuous objections to this appropriation of his property. He was a tall, gaunt mountaineer, and his face showed that he was both cunning and crafty.
"Are you Union or Confed?" asked Lawrence.
After emptying his capacious mouth of an enormous quid of tobacco, he drawled: "I don't know. Yo' uns be the first Yanks I hev seen. I allers reckoned I was a Confed, but now that yo' uns hev tuk my cohn and hawgs, I reckon I be Union. If I be Union, I get pay for my cohn and hawgs, don't I?"