“He had no business to be sassy. If Bob hadn’t a hit him I would. He said that he hoped to goodness that the rebels would come in and take the last scalp from our heads. When Bob asked him to take it back he said he wouldn’t do it, and so Bob upended him. That was the last sassy word given to us. It showed them that we were in earnest. Hello! There’s three more fellows come up and are talking to your father, and by gracious! one of them is a rebel. Let’s go there and see what they have got to say.”
Leon and his friend urged their horses forward, and in a few minutes drew up beside Mr. Sprague, who was listening to some words the rebel had to say to him. As he spoke he looked at the women and Mr. Swayne, and then sank his voice almost to a whisper.
“Colonel, are these some rebels that you are taking out of the county?” said he.
“We have got so far with them, and we expect to get the rest of the way,” answered Mr. Sprague.
“I want you to come off on one side so that I can talk to you without fear of being overheard,” said the rebel. “Now,” he added, as the men moved some distance down the road, “the rebels are going to move a big wagon-train along that road to-morrow. You see they have got to go around this county, for they don’t want to run the risk of being captured if they pass through here.”
“We stopped and saw President Knight about it, and he advised us to come on and see you,” said one of the men who had acted as guard to the rebel.
“Take his gun away from him,” said Mr. Sprague, and the rebel promptly gave it up, together with his ammunition-box and bayonet. “Have you any other weapons about you?”
“Nary one, sah,” said the rebel. “My family is down here a little ways from Ellisville, and you may know that I am all right when I bring them with me.”
“How did you say you escaped?”
“I wasn’t conscripted, as a great many were, but there was such a pressure brought to bear upon me that I thought I might as well go into the army instead of waiting until I was conscripted in reality. I have been in the service only six months, but I have been in three or four little engagements. I live in Perry county, and when I found out what you were doing here, how you had never sent any men into the army, and how there were a thousand men here who didn’t intend to go at all, I wrote to my wife, advising her to come here and I would join her after awhile; but she wrote back that she wouldn’t stir a step unless I came. On the night I escaped I was on guard, and the corporal hadn’t any more than got away from me when I was missing. I travelled all night, and at daylight reached my home. I packed up what few things I wanted to save and came here, and one of my mules dropped dead as soon as I got to Ellisville. I wanted the President to go on at once and capture that train, but he thought I had better come on and see you about it.”