“Neither can I; but he is doing just what I would have done if I had been in his place. You don’t hear the hound any longer, do you? Well, you just wait until father comes up and he will tell you that the men are chasing a riderless mule.”
Leon began to understand the matter now, and he was utterly amazed at the strategy the man had used. He had dismounted from his clay-bank, given him a tremendous dig from some weapon or other he had in his hand, knowing that the mule would go home before he would go anywhere else, unloosed the dog, which showed him the way down the lane, and he was now coming that way with the speed of the wind. His pursuers had gone on after the mule, and were leaving him behind every moment. All this Leon went over for the benefit of Tom Howe, and Dawson simply nodded his head and then walked out in the lane to find his father. Presently he saw the hound, which sprang upon him, delighted to see him, and a long way down the lane behind him came his father.
“That’s father’s lope and I know it,” said Dawson, addressing himself to his companions. “He’ll hold that for two hours in order to beat a deer on his runway. But I am going to show him that I am a good soldier. Who comes there?” he added, in a voice pitched just loud enough to reach the fugitive’s ears.
“It is I, Robert,” came the joyful response; and in a few seconds Mr. Dawson came up. “By George, I have had a good race for it!” he went on, pulling his hat from his head and using his crooked finger to remove the big drops of perspiration that clung there. “Now, let us see what those laddy-bucks are going to do with the house.”
“You’ll never see it again after to-night,” replied Dawson. “Father, this is Leon Sprague, who has stuck to me all along.”
“Leon, I am glad to meet you,” said Mr. Dawson, extending his hand. “If you wait here for a few minutes you’ll see what you are going to come to. The rebels are making up an organization already to go up to Jones county and clean them out.”
“And, father, here’s another Yank that we must not forget,” said Dawson, laying his hand upon Tom Howe’s shoulder. “He’s little, but he don’t say much. You heard about the boy that came so near losing his life during the last drive? Well, sir, he’s the man, and there is the one who saved him.”
“I’m no Yank,” returned Tom, indignantly. “I am Tom Howe, Southern born, the same as yourself; but I hate a rebel.”
“I am glad to know you, Tom, and sometime, when I get opportunity, I am going to shake hands with you. You see the reason we never knew you before is because you kept to the river during your drives, and never came back into the country at all,” said Mr. Dawson, turning to Leon. “Now, we will wait here a few minutes and see what those fellows are going to do with the house.”
They were not obliged to wait very long, for the squad soon returned, having captured the clay-bank mule, and two of them at once proceeded to ride out the lane in which the fugitives had gone. They came on until they got within fifty yards of the woods, and there they stopped.