“Certainly,” said Leon, and he felt so delighted to see the rebel that he could have hugged him. He didn’t know what his father would say to him for allowing that man to go out in the bushes. He gave up the horse, and the young fellow swung himself into the saddle.
“I am glad you didn’t give him up to some of your men who have no horses of their own,” said the rebel, as he accompanied Leon toward the head of the column. “My father raised this animal, I broke him myself, and he’s got just the kind of a gait that I like. Now, what are you going to do here in this county? Are you going to rebel against the Confederacy sure enough?”
“We have gone out already,” said Leon. “I haven’t got a copy of the resolutions with me, but you can see them when you get up to Ellisville.”
“It beats anything I ever heard of,” exclaimed the rebel, who burst out laughing every time he thought of it. “The idea that one county in the very heart of the Southern Confederacy should cut loose from it and say that they are Union men beats my time all holler. I told my father about it—”
“Where is your father now?” interrupted Leon.
“He is in the rebel army.”
“Was he conscripted?”
“No. We didn’t wait for that, but we heard enough to let us know what Jeff Davis was going to do. More than that, some of our neighbors began to talk about hanging those who did not believe as they did to the plates of their own gallery, and as we could get into the cavalry by enlisting then, we rode down to the county-seat one day and gave our names in.”
“Have you been in any fights?”
“Two or three; but, mind you, I always shot high. I never drew a bullet on a Union man in my life. I live only three or four miles from where you stopped us, and I really wish the authorities of Jones county would give me permission to go back and get my mother.”