“The Red Strings?” cried a half dozen voices at once.
“Where did you hear of them?” demanded Val Tracy.
“No matter,” said Hal shortly; “but I’ll tell you how they came to be organized. You all know that ever since the war began there have been a lot of cowards in this state, up in the North and East. There are more in Tennessee and some in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Blackguards who voted for the Union, all of them! Well, when war was declared, you may be sure the first people our conscript officers went for were these half-Yankees; but they were mighty clever and took to the mountains. When the officers went away, back they came to their homes. They arranged it so that they were warned in ample time of any attempt to draft them, and pretty soon an organization grew up among them. This developed until it occurred to some one that here was a good crowd to help the Yankees and the Abolitionists. To-day they’re scattered all over the South, and it’s said there are a number of them in our army itself.”
“The traitors!” cried April. “They should all be hung!”
“Maybe,” said her brother, with a laugh, “but first you have to catch them. They’re mighty slippery.”
“But why are they called ‘Red Strings’?” asked Miss Ivory, in her gentle voice.
“Because in the beginning,” Hal explained, “they used to wear a piece of red, white and blue cord somewhere about them so they would know each other. But this was conspicuous and not easy to get, so they adopted just a piece of red ribbon—anything so it was red. A red string dyed with pine roots would do. And they took their name from that. They have passwords and signs, so they say; but anyhow this society, which began among the poor mountaineers, has come to be mighty powerful and is making all sorts of trouble for us. They are helping prisoners to escape from Andersonville and the other camps. They are doing all they can for the regular spies, and any information they get is sure to be sent North to the Yankees sooner or later. It’s a bad business.”
“Then we’ll have to watch out for suspicious people who wear red strings,” cried Val Tracy with a chuckle. “Ah, ha! I see one already. Miss Ivory has one about her neck.”
There was a fine laugh at this.
“You had better keep an eye on me after this,” said that gentle lady with a serious face.