"We are two boys who belong to one of the New York regiments."
"Glad to see you," said the young officer laughingly. "I wish you were back home where you belong, but as you're down here, I'm glad you met us. We'll see that you go with the rest of the Yanks, and that you don't do any more damage to our country. I'm surprised the Yankee soldiers don't fight better."
The tone in which the officer spoke was almost bantering. Noel's anger was aroused, but by an effort he restrained himself and said in a low voice, "You talk very bravely! You'll get over your surprise pretty soon."
"It will have to be 'pretty soon,' I reckon," said the officer good-naturedly. "The Yanks have been running so fast and so far that they haven't gotten their breath yet. About all we have to do nowadays is to chase the Yankee soldiers. They didn't make a stand at Manassas either time. They ran from General Lee on the Peninsula, and now, though they have been running after him up here, they will dodge and run in the other direction the minute he turns around."
Noel Curtis was unable to reply to the bantering of his captor. It was true that thus far in the struggle the Army of the Potomac had not covered itself with glory. In Tennessee and Kentucky, too, at the time, the Federal forces were meeting with disaster after disaster, and to many of the faint-hearted supporters of the North it seemed almost as if the end had come.
"We sure are going to march straight to Philadelphia, and then you won't be able to stop us before we get into New York and Boston. If we ever get inside Boston, we'll show some of those fellows a trick or two that will teach them some things they don't know now. If it hadn't been for that city I don't believe there would have been any war."
"You don't?" demanded Noel, and in spite of his predicament, he was interested in what the young officer was saying.
"No, sir! No, sir! There certainly would not have been any war. The trouble was that Boston thought she not only could attend to her own business, but that she could direct the business of all the rest of us. It's a great thing, my son, for a man or for a city to be able to mind its own business. That's what I say; the cocksureness of the Yanks is so great that they think they can tell all the rest of the world how to act."
Noel was listening only in part to the words of the leader of the little band, from which already wild thoughts of escaping had presented themselves.
As neither of the young soldiers had been asked to give up his gun, there were thoughts in Noel's mind of suddenly darting to one side of the road and trying to flee before the men were aware of his attempt. But the folly of such an effort was so marked that Noel abandoned every such suggestion.