“I declare, it is always so,” soliloquized Leon. “When you get everything going just as you want it to, there is always somebody to step in and knock the thing into a cocked hat. Smith won’t get the money, and he might as well give up trying.”
“Bring on your rebs, I say,” repeated Dawson, raising his carbine and looking all around. “We’re ready for a fight!”
“You may sing a different tune from that,” said Mr. Giddings.
“I know I may, but I hope not,” said Dawson. “I want to keep up long enough to pay the rebels for burning our house.”
It was three o’clock when they arrived within sight of Ellisville, and then Mr. Dawson, who had been riding all the way with Mr. Sprague, took command. Under his supervision the Union men were all posted behind the breastworks, and each one knew where he belonged. His camp was right where he halted, and all the men had to do was to throw off their arms, picket their horses and wait for dinner and supper, which were to be served together. If there was anything to which Leon objected it was to being held down with a firm hand. He wanted to go with his father, for by doing that he knew that he would be in a fair way to learn all the news that happened within the borders of the Jones-County Confederacy, as well as some things that occurred outside of it; so he climbed the breastworks and went down to the porch of the hotel, where he found all the chief men of the county gathered and holding a consultation with his father.
“I thought it best to burn the bridge, and move our pickets up nearer headquarters, for it would put the rebels to some trouble to swim their horses over the creek,” Mr. Knight was saying to his father when he came up. “If we only had our breastworks built nearer the creek we could whip them before they ever got across.”
“I think that is the best way, and I wondered long ago that you didn’t think of it before,” said Mr. Sprague. “Halloo! there is something coming, down there. And what’s that waving over them? It is a white flag, as sure as I live! Knight, you are getting to be a big man when the enemy comes to consult you in that way.”
“I declare, I believe that’s what it is!” said Mr. Knight, after he and the other chief men of the party had taken a good view of it. “Now, we don’t want them to see how many men we have got, and I want you to order them all into the breastworks out of sight. Tell them that we will describe the whole thing to them after the rebels go away.”
The chief men went off at once to obey the order, and by time the two Confederates got up to the hotel porch there wasn’t more than a half-dozen of them in sight—just enough to act as body-guard for the President. There were two rebels in the party, and with them were four pickets whom they had picked up after they had swam their horses across the creek.
“Here’s a couple of gentlemen who want to see the President,” said one of the pickets. “They have come to us with General Lowery’s compliments and want us to surrender.”