“That’s just what’s a-bothering of me. I don’t know, but we can watch and find out. Now we’ll wait until they come back,” said Dan, picking out a comfortable seat for himself against a tree where the bushes were so thick that one might have passed within five feet of him without knowing that he was there. “He’s a rebel, he deserted to the enemy with a uniform on, and if we see some Confederates come along here we will tell them where he is.”
“But we don’t know where he is,” said Cale, looking around to find an easy spot to sit down.
“Well, the rebels can easy watch here until he comes back,” retorted his brother. “What’s there to hinder them from jumping out on him and taking him and all that he’s got into the bargain? Now, I like, when I am sitting down in this way, to talk about what I am going to do with those things we are going to take away from Leon. I speak for his revolver.”
This started Cale off on a new subject, and it wasn’t long before he forgot that there were armed men within less than a quarter of a mile from him. If Leon and Tom could have been dealt with as these young backwoodsmen wanted them to be it wouldn’t be long before they would have changed places. They probably passed an hour in talking over their various plans, and then they were brought to an abrupt silence by the sound of horses’ hoofs upon the road. The men had been advancing so cautiously that they were close upon them before they knew it. Cale, whose greatest care was to keep out of sight, at once stretched himself at full length in the bushes, while Dan, who wanted to see who the men were, raised himself to his full height and looked over the thicket. What he saw was about a dozen men, all on horseback, and noted, too, that they were all dressed in Confederate uniform; but one thing that astonished him was a revolver that was pointed straight at his head. The leader of the horsemen was an old soldier, and he could not be taken unawares.
“Halloo! By George, there’s a Yank,” he exclaimed. “Come out of that.”
Dan was thunderstruck. He had never expected to be greeted this way by his friends, and for a moment or two he stood with his hands down by his side unable to move or speak; while Cale, uttering a smothered ejaculation, began to worm his way out of the bushes on his belly.
“Hold on! There are two of you there, and if you move another hair I will cut loose on you!” shouted the leader; and to show that he was in earnest he turned his horse and rode into the woods. His men were with him, and when Dan cleared his eyes of a mist that seemed to obstruct their vision he found that there were half a dozen revolvers looking at him. “We’ve got you and you might as well come out. Where do you belong?”
“Are you Confederates?” stammered Dan.
“Of course we are. What did you take us for? Come out of that.”
“Well, now, if you are Confederates you want to turn those weapons the other way,” said Dan, growing bolder when he heard his own voice. “I am as good a Confederate as you are.”