“Very good, sir. I will be on hand when I am wanted.”
Mr. Sprague lost no time in getting his men together, and while he was hunting them up Dawson held a short interview with his father.
“Now, you take my horse,” said he, “and when we get back we’ll get your nag. Of course Leon is going to arrest Newman, and I am going with him. Turn into any open place you can find in the grove, and there make your camp. You will find them all friendly here.”
Mr. Dawson mounted the horse and led the wagon down the road, and just then Bud McCoy came up. Bud was always on hand when he was wanted. He got so in the habit of staying close around to Mr. Sprague that it was not long before the men came to call him Colonel Sprague’s body-guard. But Bud didn’t mind that. He said he got more to do by being around there than he could anywhere else, and that was what a Union volunteer wanted in times like these.
“What’s up?” he exclaimed. “What does the old man want with volunteers?”
“He is going out to arrest Dan Newman,” said Leon.
“Well, there; I always thought that man ought to be arrested,” said Bud. “He has been preaching up secession docterings till you can’t rest. What’s he been doing now?”
It did not take long for Leon to make Bud understand the matter, and as he went on to tell what Dan had been guilty of, the scowl on the man’s face changed to one of furious hatred. When Leon ceased he struck his fist into his open palm with a ringing slap.
“You’ll go, too, won’t you?”
“Of course I’ll go. I ain’t a-going to stand no fooling like that. He has said enough to hang him higher’n Haman.”