“Can he suspect us?” thought Watson. The same thought went through the mind of Macgreggor, but he merely said: “We are nearly at our journey’s end now. By to-morrow we will be in Chattanooga.”
“Sit down and make yourselves comfortable,” snarled Hare, with the air of an unwilling host. The visitors took the chairs which Mrs. Hare had placed for them at the supper-table. They were joined by husband and wife, and the negro “aunty” was soon serving a delicious meal of corn bread, Irish stew, and other good things. They all ate with a will, including Waggie, who was given a private lot of bones by the fireside. When the supper was over the farmer arose abruptly. “I s’pose you fellows have had a pretty long tramp, and want to go to bed,” he said. “We keep good hours in this house, anyway, and turn in early at night—so that we may turn out early in the morning.”
“Give them a chance to dry themselves before the fire,” urged Mrs. Hare.
“Let ’em dry themselves in bed,” muttered the farmer. Whereupon he lighted a candle, and turned towards the door leading to the second story. He was evidently in a great hurry to get his guests up-stairs. Watson, Macgreggor and George looked at one another, as if trying to fathom the cause of their peculiar reception at the hands of Farmer Hare. But each one silently decided that their only cue was to be as polite as possible, and refrain from any altercation with their host.
“After all,” thought Watson, “if we can spend the night here we will be off again at dawn—and then let our surly host take himself to Kamchatka, for all we care.”
Half an hour later Watson and Macgreggor, thoroughly tired out, were sound asleep, in one of the small rooms in the second-story of the house. George, however, lay tossing from side to side on a bed in the adjoining room, directly over the kitchen, with Waggie curled up on the floor close by. The more he thought of the strange behavior of Hare the more uneasy he became. Why had the farmer regarded him and his two companions with such a suspicious glance? Then George suddenly recollected where he had seen that face before. Yes! There could be no mistake. While he, Macgreggor and Watson were dining that day at the village tavern in Jasper, Hare was loitering on the porch of the place. But what of that? The three pretended Kentuckians had told their usual story, and professed their love for the Confederacy, and no one there had seemed to doubt their truthfulness for a moment.
In vain the boy tried to fall asleep. At last, hearing voices in the kitchen, he rose quietly from his bed, stole out of his room, and stealthily walked to the little hallway that led to the kitchen stairway. At the head of the staircase he halted. It was clear that Farmer Hare was saying something emphatic, while his wife was entering a feeble protest. An intuition told the listener that his own party was the subject of discussion. Slowly, cautiously, he crept down the stairway, until he almost touched the closed door which led from it to the kitchen.
“I tell you, woman,” Hare was saying, “these three fellows are spies of some sort, and the sooner we have them under arrest the better.”
“I can’t believe it,” murmured the wife.
“I don’t care whether you believe it or not,” rejoined the husband, in a harsh tone. “Don’t I tell you that when these two men, and the boy, were at the tavern in Jasper to-day, one of the men was recognized by John Henderson. Henderson is a spy in the service of General Beauregard, and was in the camp of General Mitchell only a few days ago, disguised as a trader. There he saw this fellow—the one with the brown beard—and he swears there’s no mistake. But he didn’t tell us in time—the three disappeared. No; there’s mischief of some sort brewing here, and I intend to stop it, if my name’s Hare. We don’t want any spies around here.”