"And do the Home Guards know that the Yanks are armed?" continued Rodney. "If they do, there isn't a man in the company who will join in the pursuit. They'll make a big show of going if Tom orders them out, but the first good chance they get they'll hide in the woods."
"And I don't know that I blame them," observed Dick.
"Nor me. There's no fun in walking up on an armed and desperate man when he is concealed and can see every move you make, while you cannot see hide nor hair of him. Mother," here he sunk his voice to a whisper, "I hope they won't catch those fellows; and if they come around this house I'll help them if I can."
"Here too," whispered Dick; and Mrs. Gray never uttered a word of rebuke. The boys believed that she would help them herself.
When Mr. Gray came in the matter was talked over again, and he did not appear to be very anxious that the fugitives should be captured. On the contrary he discussed their chances of escape with great composure, and said he thought their prospects would be brighter than they were if they only had somebody with them who could show them how to throw off the dogs. These dogs were not intended to seize the fugitives, you will understand, but merely to overtake and hold them at bay until the soldiers could come up. Large packs of trained "nigger" dogs would sometimes pull down a single man when they found him in the woods, and it is a matter of history that some of our poor fellows who escaped from Andersonville were sadly torn by them.
But the four escaped prisoners in question did not come near Mr. Gray's house that night; or if they did, Rodney and Dick never knew it. It was on the morning of the next day, just as breakfast was nearly over, that the first exciting thing happened. Ned Griffin rode into the yard, and on his way to the back porch he passed along the carriage-way in front of one of the dining-room windows. Rodney had a fair view of his face as he rode by, and Ned looked through the open window and saw Rodney; and in an instant a signal passed from one to the other—a signal so very slight that no one but a schoolboy would have noticed it, but it told Rodney as plainly as words that Ned had news for him that he did not want to divulge in the presence of any third party. So Rodney hastily excused himself and went out on the porch.
"You look just as Rosebud did when I came home last evening," said he, when he saw Ned standing at the foot of the steps holding his horse by the bridle. "But I hope you will be more accommodating than he was, for he would not tell what he had on his mind."
"Say," replied Ned. He looked all around to make sure that there was no else within hearing and then went on. "You heard about those escaped Yankees, didn't you?"