“No; but I am awake now,” called out a voice from the inside; and there was a little fussing in the cabin and the rebel came to the door.
“Say, Colonel, are you going to stay here all night?”
“That is the intention. I want to get an early start, and it is too far for me to go home.”
“Well, now, I know that you haven’t got any quilts,” said the rebel, disappearing under the roof of the lean-to. “Here’s some that will add to your comfort to-night. Take them and welcome.”
Mr. Sprague thanked the rebel for his gift and spread the quilts down where they intended to camp for the night, while Leon told himself that it was a good thing to have a father who was Secretary of War, after all. They slept soundly for a little while, but at half-past three Mr. Sprague was awake and busily engaged in arousing the men. In less time than it takes to tell it they were all up and cooking their breakfast, and in an hour more the grove was empty. Five hundred men were going out to attack that wagon-train, and, if possible, secure something to eat. We don’t mean to say that they were hard up for provisions, for there was bacon and corn-meal enough in the county to last them for months; but we mean that they had lived so long on these things that they had grown tired of them. They had been used to something better than that before the war, and when their boats came back from tide-water, after their owners had succeeded in selling their logs, the housewife found pickles, canned meat and condensed milk enough to last her family for six months. That was one thing that the men had in view; and another thing, some of them were in need of clothes; and they believed that this wagon-train had something of that kind stowed away for the boys in Mobile. And, better than all—and here was the thing that led the men to look with favor upon robbing the train—it would show the Confederates they were in earnest;—just what the Union people wanted to do.
It was a long march from the grove in Ellisville to the stream that separated the two counties, but the men went about it in earnest and determined to get there in time to stop that wagon-train. Of course, there was plenty of joking and laughing while they were on their own ground, but the moment they struck the bridge a deep silence fell upon the company. We ought by rights to say that the men had been divided into five companies, a hundred men in each, and that each one had three officers to direct them; but the Union men of Jones county had not got that far in military tactics. There was only one man at the head, Mr. Sprague, and he had the full management of them.
Mr. Sprague rode at the head of the line in company with all the men who had horses, and there must have been about fifty of them, and when he crossed the bridge he sent a dozen of them on ahead to travel at full speed, to see if the wagon-train had passed.
“I needn’t remind you that you want to go into every house you come to, and if there is a man in there take him in,” said he. “Don’t say a word to the women, but ketch the men. It won’t do to leave any rebels behind us, for they can easily warn the train, and so we must take them with us until we get the job done. Silas, I will appoint you captain of this squad.”
Silas raised his hand to his hat with something that was intended for a military salute, called all his men about him, and went down the road at a keen jump, while the rest of the company travelled on as before. An hour afterward they came up with their scouts, and Silas at once rode up to report.
“The wagon-train hain’t passed yet, and we’ve got five men, and two of them are rebels. We had to chase through a cornfield after one, and fired two shots at him.”