“There’s nothing like smallpox, eh?” said George.
“Or nothing like a boy who can imitate a darky’s voice,” put in Macgreggor. “Where did you learn the art, George?”
“We boys in Cincinnati had a minstrel company of our own,” the boy explained, “and I used to play negro parts.”
“I’ll never call the minstrels stupid again,” said Watson. “They have been instrumental in saving our lives.”
“Rather say it was your own brains that did it,” interposed George.
So they talked until daybreak, for they found it impossible to sleep. Meanwhile the weather had changed. When the sun came peeping over the horizon, between tearful clouds, as if afraid that it was almost too damp for him to be out, the trio were pushing cautiously along the bank of the Tennessee, in the direction of Chattanooga.
“I don’t know who brought the Vigilants out for us the second time, unless it was our dear friend Hare, and I don’t know whether they will give us another chase this morning,” said Watson, as they were laboriously ascending one of the mountain spurs which led down to the river shore, “but we must go steadily on, and trust to luck. To delay would be fatal. This is Friday—and we must be in Marietta by this evening.”
On they trudged, over rocks and paths that would have taxed the ability of a nimble-footed chamois, as they wondered how the rest of their friends were faring, and where might be the intrepid Andrews. Sometimes Waggie scampered joyously on; sometimes he reposed in his master’s overcoat. The clouds had now cleared away; the sun was shining serenely over the swollen and boisterous waters of the crooked Tennessee. Nature was once more preparing to smile.
“I’m getting frightfully hungry,” cried George, about noon-time. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of breakfast.”
“There’s where we may get some,” said Macgreggor. He pointed to an old-fashioned colonial house of brick, with a white portico, which they could see in the centre of a large open tract about a quarter of a mile back of the river. The smoke was curling peacefully from one of the two great chimneys, as if offering a mute invitation to a stranger to enter the house and partake of what was being cooked within. In a field in front of the mansion cattle were grazing, and the jingle of their bells sounded sweetly in the distance. No one would dream, to look at such an attractive picture, that the grim Spectre of War stalked in the land.