“Well, sir, you have got him as easy as falling off a log, haven’t you?” said Cale, gleefully, as he sat down on the ground beside Leon and passed his hands over him from head to foot. “It’s Leon, as sure as I am alive, and you’ve got him tied up hard and fast,” he added, as he felt of the prisoner’s face.
“Hold on till I take the gag out of his mouth,” said Dan. “He talks as sassy as you please.”
“He does? Then I would punch him in the mouth for it,” said Cale, who showed that he could be brave enough when he had the power.
“No, that won’t do,” said Dan, who forthwith proceeded to take the shirt out of Leon’s mouth. “You are an officer—”
“Oh, get out!” sneered Cale. “I’ll bet you when our officers get him into their hands they’ll treat him worse than we will.”
“They didn’t treat them so at Mobile when we saw those prisoners brought in there,” retorted Dan. “We are officers, and I’ll bet you that I will get some men to command when I give this fellow up.”
Leon took a few moments in which to get over the effect of the shirt being in his mouth, after which he was ready to talk to Cale; for, as we said, he was impatient to hear his version of the story of his escape.
“How did you get away, Cale?” said he.
“You thought they had me hard and fast, didn’t you?” said Cale, shaking his fist at Leon. “Well, they didn’t. They had me in the third story of the hotel, and once, when the sentinel wasn’t looking, I tore up the quilts they had given me to sleep on and dug out.”
“Didn’t they have any sentry under the window?” said Leon, astonished at such a want of foresight on the part of the Union men.