"I don't; but if those same Home Guards should chance to stumble upon the soldiers from Camp Pinckney, we'd have something to trouble ourselves about, wouldn't we? So I say we had better move away from here. Pick up that basket, somebody; and Ned, you take care of the quilts, for we'll not need them. We shall lie by during the daytime and travel at night. You haven't heard the last of this morning's work, Ned, and neither have I."
"If that Home Guard gets you into trouble after what you have done for him, find means to let the —th Michigan cavalry know it; and the first time we scout through here we'll pay our respects to him," said Ben hotly. "If it hadn't been for Griffin's mother, Captain Randolph would have gone to a Northern stockade as sure as he is a living man."
"I'll bear that in mind," replied Ned. "Good-by, boys. So-long, Yanks."
"May the best of good luck always attend you, Johnny," said the fugitives in concert.
This parting would have disgusted Captain Randolph if he had been there to witness it, and might have led him to say: "This is another insult that I've got to remember against the Griffin family," for there was a good deal of friendly feeling manifested on both sides. Surly Ben did not turn his back this time, but held fast to Ned with one hand, while he pointed to the shoes he wore, with the other, and said:
"If I get away I shall have you to thank for it. I couldn't have walked a mile with my feet on the ground as they were when you took pity on me last night. If I can ever repay you I will."
"You have repaid me a hundred times over by letting Rodney and Dick go free when you captured them a few days ago. So-long, Yanks."
"Fall in," said Rodney. "Good-by, Ned. I wish you would make it your business to tell mother that you saw us safely off."
Ned began to roll up the quilts, the corporal shouldered the basket containing the provisions, and Rodney led the way deeper into the woods, the soldiers coming next in line and Dick Graham bringing up the rear; and as he trudged along in silence he had much to say to himself. Was this Rodney Gray, who was risking so much to guide these ragged, foot-sore men to a place of safety, the same rabid Secessionist who once wanted to ride rough-shod over everybody who stood up for the Union; who had not scrupled to bring his own cousin into serious difficulty on account of his loyalty to the Old Flag; who applauded so lustily when the Mobile Register said that Northern soldiers were small-change knaves and vagrants who were fit for nothing but to be whipped by niggers; and who declared he would not pull off his gray suit until the South had gained her independence? We said that fifteen months' experience in the army of the Confederacy, which never kept a single one of the promises it made to those who enlisted under its banner, had opened Rodney Gray's eyes; and although he still believed in State Rights, he did not believe in fighting for a government that had deliberately gone to work to make conscripts of its volunteers. Nor did he longer believe that Northern men didn't know how to fight. The way they thrashed him and his comrades in Missouri proved that they did.
Dick Graham was like Marcy Gray, Rodney's cousin. He loved the Union and the flag that waved over it; but, unlike Marcy, he thought it his duty to stand by his State. When Van Dorn was whipped at Pea Ridge Dick Graham was willing to lay down his arms and give up the useless struggle; but the government at Richmond wouldn't let him. It made conscripts of him and all the other State men who had enlisted under Governor Jackson's proclamation, and ordered them across the Mississippi to join the Army of the Centre under Beauregard. Dick went because he could not help himself, and did his duty faithfully while he remained; but he had his discharge in his pocket now, and said there would have to be a marked change in his feelings before he would swear away his liberty again. There were many like him. He thought of all the men in his company and regiment with whom he had been on terms of intimacy, and could not name half a dozen who would have said a harsh word to Rodney Gray if they had known what he was doing at that moment. The most of them would have done the same thing and been glad of the chance.