“Come on, Leon,” said Dawson. “You’ll have to go up to Tom’s camp, too. We haven’t heard your story yet.”
Leon began his story as they walked along, and as he did not have very much to tell, anyway, his companions knew all about it by the time they got to the place where Tom had left his mule. Tom was disgusted when Leon told him about his being captured by one man, and more than all by such a man as Dan Newman, but he was elated just as much when Leon told how Ballard had taken him into the woods and given him something to eat.
“Howdy, Mr. Ballard,” said Tom, walking up and shaking the Texas rebel by the hand. “I didn’t get a chance to shake hands with you before, but now I am glad to see you. That boy is a friend of mine, and if you do anything for him it is as though you did it for me. Now, we will take some supper and then go to bed.”
While Tom was kindling the fire Leon related to him the particulars of Mr. Smith’s death, and to say that Tom felt quite as badly as Leon did would be telling nothing but the truth. He did not say anything about the will which he had given into his father’s care, or about the trouble that Leonard Smith had threatened to make on account of it, for something told him that he had better keep that to himself. Thus far, he and Mr. Sprague were the only ones that knew anything about it. Of course, he would have been perfectly willing to have trusted Tom with his secret, but there were other men there, Ballard and Dawson, of whom he knew nothing. How did he know that they would not hunt for the money and make off with it? It was hidden in the ground somewhere. Leonard seemed to think that that was the place he would go to find it, and if he told everybody of it they would dig Mr. Smith’s farm full of holes but that they would find it.
“I don’t think I had better say anything about that,” said Leon to himself, after he had thought the matter over. “I will talk about it to father the first chance I get. These men will all be poor when this war is settled, and they may fight about the money as readily as they fired into that regiment of cavalry.”
During the week following there was nothing happened that would be of interest to you, although it was full of interest to the Union men of Jones county. In the first place, as soon as they had eaten breakfast, the prisoners who had been captured the day before were summoned to the hotel, and there signed their paroles. They did it, too, knowing full well what was to be expected if they didn’t keep them, for Mr. Knight was there, and he went over the same speech he had delivered to the captain in his room. There were a number of wagons, and the wounded were placed carefully in them, and they were to be taken away and delivered to their friends. There were also two hundred Union men with them who were to guard them as far as the bridge, and then they were to bid them good-bye and come back.
“I hope,” said Mr. Knight, after he had got through with his speech, “that you all have been treated right since you have been here.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” responded a dozen voices. “You have treated us like we were your own.”
“Then I hope that if you get any of my boys in the Confederate lines you will treat them in the same way. That’s all. Go on.”
Mr. Knight did not raise any objections when the men took off their hats and gave him a cheer. He simply bowed and went up the stairs that led to his room.