“I have not only got that, but the man what owns it,” returned Dan, with the same pride he would have exhibited had he won an enemy’s colors in battle. “I’ve got Leon Sprague.”
Cale was so astonished that he couldn’t say anything just then.
“While you have been shut up in jail I have been working for the glorious cause,” said Dan. “I got him just as easy as falling off a log. I’ve heard so much tell about Leon’s courage that I was kinder afraid to tackle him; but pshaw! I handled him as easy as you would handle a baby.”
Let us now go back for a moment and tell what had happened to Dan while Cale was being shut up in the hotel. When he came back from holding his interview with the Confederate captain he did not go to bed, as Cale did, but filled his pipe with negro-twist and lay down on the ground to smoke and think. He lay there for an hour—he didn’t want any breakfast; besides, he was getting tired of corn-bread and bacon, anyway—building his air-castles and dreaming how proud he would be if he could only hold a position equal to the captain’s.
“Boots on his feet that came up to his knees and gloves on his hands that came clear up to there,” said Dan, motioning with his finger to a point on his arm that came clear up to his elbow. “And didn’t he handle that horse gay? She was a frisky animal, but he managed her as easy as if he was seated in a rocking-chair. And, dog-gone him, he went and fooled me!”
By this time his father had eaten his breakfast and came out to his usual place on the threshold, pipe a-going. He took a few pulls at the tobacco, cast his eye up to the clouds to see what the weather was going to be, and was then ready to begin his topic of conversation.
“The South is going to whip,” said he. “It don’t stand to reason that one county in the midst of a State that’s in rebellion is going to whip all the counties around her.”
“But, father, do you think they are going to fight?” asked Dan.
“Fight! No, they won’t. I only wish I could get my position as colonel. I would show them how to clean these men out.”
“And the men here wouldn’t give you the position of Secretary of War,” said Dan. “What would you have done if you had got that position?”