“Isn’t it strange?” thought the boy. “To-morrow morning we will be reversing our journey on this railroad, and burning bridges on our way back to Chattanooga. But how are we to steal a train? I wonder if Andrews and the rest of the party will be on hand to-night at Marietta.” Then, as he realized that he was in a car filled with men who would treat him as a spy, if they knew the nature of his errand to the South, there came over him a great wave of homesickness. He had lived all his life among friends; it was for him a new sensation to feel that he was secretly opposed to his fellow-travelers.
The thin Captain who sat next to him turned and curiously regarded Waggie, who was lying on his master’s lap. He had shrewd gray eyes, had this Captain, and there was a week’s growth of beard upon his weazened face.
“Where did you get your dog from, lad?” he asked, giving Waggie a pat with one of his skeleton-like hands. It was a pat to which the little animal paid no attention.
“From home—Cincinnati.”
George had answered on the spur of the moment, thoughtlessly, carelessly, before he had a chance to detect what a blunder he was making. The next second he could have bitten out his tongue in very vexation; he felt that his face was burning a bright red; he had a choking sensation at the throat.
The emaciated Captain was staring at him in a curiously surprised fashion. “From Cincinnati? Cincinnati, Ohio?” he asked, fixing his lynx-like eyes attentively upon his companion.
Poor George! Every idea seemed to have left him in his sudden confusion; he was only conscious that the Confederate officer continued to regard him in the same intent manner. “I say,” repeated the latter, “is your home in Ohio?”
“Yes, Cincinnati, Ohio,” said the boy boldly. “After all,” as he thought, “I had better put a frank face on this stupidity of mine; a stammering answer will only make this fellow the more suspicious.”
“So then you’re a Northerner, are you, my son?” observed the Captain. “I thought you spoke with a bit of a Yankee accent!”
“Yes, I’m a Northerner,” answered George. As he felt himself plunging deeper and deeper into hot water he was trying to devise some plausible story to tell the officer. But how to invent one while he was being subjected to that close scrutiny. One thing, at least, was certain. Once he had admitted that his home was in Ohio he could not make any use of the oft repeated Kentucky yarn.