“You will make good soldiers some day,” said he. “The rebels can’t get in here any way they can fix it. They are bound to come in column when they assault these breastworks, because the cane is so thick that they can’t come in any other way, and before they can get in here they won’t have a man left.”
“There’s one of them now,” muttered Smith, as he caught sight of Mr. Sprague standing in the door of his lean-to. If Smith had only known it, Leon was in the act of reading the will. “If I can get a-hold of that boy of yours I’ll soon know as much as he does. He knows where the money is, and he will tell it all sooner than be hung.”
Mr. Sprague bowed to Smith as he passed by, but the latter didn’t pay any attention to him. The man wanted to know where he could find Coleman, but he was much too sharp to speak to Mr. Sprague about it. He kept on a little further, and found somebody of whom he could make inquiries. Another thing that attracted Smith’s attention right here was the air of neatness and order with which all the lean-tos were arranged. They were laid off in streets, so that one could go the whole length of them on the darkest of nights without stumbling over a brush shanty which contained some sleeping occupants.
“You will find Caleb up there on the outskirts of the camp,” said the man of whom he made inquiries. “He’s got sick of poleing the boats over, and so has gone up to camp to lie down.”
“Then he isn’t doing any work at all?” asked Smith.
“Work? Naw. He says he hain’t got but a little time to stay with his folks, and so he intends to see them all he can. When we go down there to meet the rebels, he is going to stay in camp.”
“Then he is just the man I want,” said Smith to himself, as he pursued his way toward Coleman’s lean-to. “I aint a-going to meet the rebels myself, and consequently I don’t blame him.”
Smith followed along up the street until he came to the end of it, and there he found Coleman. The lean-to that he had over him was not very secure, but Coleman didn’t seem to mind that. He lay stretched out on the bedding with his pipe in his mouth, and three or four dogs and as many children kept him company.
“Why don’t you put a roof on your lean-to?” asked Smith. “When it rains you’ll wish you had paid more attention to it.”
“Well, when it rains I can’t fix it; and now it don’t need it,” replied Coleman with a laugh. “It will do.”