"And if he did deny it, how did he explain the presence of that
Confederate flag in his house?" demanded Mark.
"Hold on till I tell you how it was," said Beardsley, as soon as the boys gave him a chance to speak. "Them Yankees went up to Grays', like I told you, and I was here when they come back; but they didn't have the first thing."
"Whoop! Then they didn't search the house," yelled Mark. "Marcy and Jack have more shot-guns and sporting rifles than any two other boys in the country."
"Leastwise they didn't find nothing that was contraband of war," said the captain. "Them is the very words they spoke to me."
Tom and Mark looked at each other in speechless amazement.
CHAPTER XV.
MARCY SEES SOMEBODY.
If you would like to know why Captain Burrows (that was the name of the officer who commanded the Union troopers) did not find in Mrs. Gray's house any articles that were contraband of war, we will ride with him and his company long enough to find out.
During the days of which we write scouting was a necessary duty, but it sometimes happened that it was one of the most disagreeable, particularly when it fell to the lot of a gentleman like Captain Burrows, and his orders compelled him to enter private houses whose only inmates were supposed to be women and children; but now and then these scouts found able-bodied men in uniform concealed in dwellings that were thought to be occupied wholly by non-combatants. During the Yazoo Pass expedition the gunboat to which we belonged was ordered to search all the houses along the banks of the Coldwater and Tallahatchie rivers, although we knew that that important duty had already been performed by the soldiers. In one house, whose female occupants vociferously affirmed that all the men who belonged there were in Vicksburg and had not been near home for six months, a belt containing a sword and revolver was found under a bed. That was as good evidence as we wanted that the man who owned the belt was not far away, and after a short search he was discovered in the cellar. No doubt there were better hiding-places about the house, but the blue-jackets came up so suddenly that he did not have time to go to them. A little further search resulted in the finding of some important dispatches which the Confederate had concealed in a barrel of corned beef; but when its contents were poked over by a bayonet, the dispatches betrayed themselves by rising to the surface. So you see it was sometimes necessary to search private houses; but like Mr. Watkins, the gunboat officer who took Marcy Gray from his bed to serve as pilot in the Union navy, Captain Barrows wished that some other officer had been detailed to do the work. Although he went from Beardsley's house straight to Mrs. Gray's, he had no intention of searching it. He knew more of Marcy than Tom and Mark thought, and perhaps he could have told them a few things concerning themselves that would have made them open: their eyes. He had halted and questioned every negro he met on his scout, and he knew the name of every Union man and every rebel in the settlement. When he arrived at the house he did not lead his men into the yard, nor did he ride in himself. He dismounted and went in on foot, and Marcy, who had seen him coming, opened the door without giving him time to knock.
"I know you are Marcy Gray, from the descriptions I have heard of you," was the way in which the captain began his business. "I am told that you have any number of dangerous weapons as well as a Confederate flag in your possession."