“What will I go in there for?” he asked, and one wouldn’t suppose that his life was in danger, to hear him talk.
“Go into the woods quick!” said Ballard. “I’m Union.”
The revulsion of feeling was so great that Leon staggered and would have fallen to the ground if Ballard had not ridden up and caught him by the collar.
“Go in there quick before some one sees you!” said Ballard, looking up and down the road as he spoke. “I wouldn’t hurt the hair of your head. I’ve wanted to get with those Jones county people ever since I have been here, and now I have got a chance at last. Go into the woods quick as you can walk. I’ll untie your hands in there.”
Leon waited to hear no more, but dived straight into the bushes, and he never stopped until he had gone half a mile from the road. But fast as he went, Ballard was close behind him. When he stopped his captor dismounted and pulled a big bowie-knife from his boot. One blow was enough, and Leon’s arms were free.
“Ballard, I never shall forget you!” said Leon, and his voice was somewhat husky as he spoke. “I have been wondering how I should get away, but I never thought that you would help me. You are a friend indeed. But first I want to know if you have anything to eat in your haversack? I haven’t had a bite since yesterday.”
Ballard at once unslung his haversack, and while Leon was regaling himself on the corn-bread and bacon, which tasted wonderfully good to him, he told Leon how he happened to go into the service, while he knew that the South was going to be utterly impoverished. He owned a fine cattle-ranch in Texas, and when the Southern men around him began to talk of going into her service he found that he had to go, too, or run the risk of stretching hemp.
“I didn’t want to go for a long time,” said Ballard, “and when I found that my neighbors were all giving in their names, and began to look cross-eyed at me and make remarks that people who were not for us were against us, I saw it was high time I was doing something; so I got an Englishman to take care of my place, and here I am. I tell you, there is a lot of men in the rebel army that think just the same as I do.”
“Let them come over into our county and we’ll treat them right,” said Leon. “Father says we will have at least ten thousand men by-and-by, and it is going to take more than double that number of men to whip us. Now, Ballard, I am much obliged to you for this breakfast, and I am now able to go on. Are you going to take your horse with you?”
“Oh, I couldn’t think of going anywhere without that horse,” said Ballard, hastily. “I’ll warrant that if the rebels went by within ten feet of us he wouldn’t say a word.”