"Do you mean to tell me that there are 200 Yankees between here and Camp Pinckney?" exclaimed Tom, who did not like to hear Rodney's story and Dick's confirmed in this positive way. "I should think you would have turned back when you found your way blocked."
"Since you are an old soldier, sah, and have snuffed Yankee powder, I know that you are joking. Our way wasn't blocked, and we had no orders to turn back. We were commanded to capture those four men and bring them to Camp Pinckney without the loss of an hour; and so we kept right on as though there hadn't been a Yank within 1000 miles of us."
Captain Randolph gazed admiringly at the veteran, who did not talk or act as though he had done more than any other soldier would have done under the circumstances.
CHAPTER IX.
UNCLE SAM'S LOST BOYS.
"I wish I had some of your courage," said Tom at length. "I may need it, for I am liable any day to be ordered to Camp Pinckney with a squad of conscripts."
"W-h-e-w!" whistled the lieutenant. He looked at the sergeant, the sergeant looked at him, and then they both looked at Captain Tom with an expression on their faces that the latter could not understand. "Well, if this is the sort of work you partisans have to do, I am glad I am not a partisan," continued the lieutenant. "I'd rather go through Bull Run and take my chances, than attempt to travel the sixty miles between here and camp with a squad of conscripts. You will have to take to the woods, of course, and that will be the time your conscripts will give you the slip. If you start with a hundred and get through with ten you will be doing well."
"There are people here who think I'll not get through at all," said Tom. "They say that I and my men will be captured or killed."