"Yes, they concluded they'd better sign," said he, with a laugh, "and here are their paroles. At first the lady of the house, who was disposed to be impudent and sassy until one of the rebs cautioned her that it might be worse for them if she didn't keep still, declared that she had nothing at all in the way of writing materials; but when one of the Johnnies told her, with some impatience, that if she didn't hand them out we'd be likely to go through her shanty, she produced the stump of a pencil and some paper that was so rough I could scarcely write on it; but I made it do, and, would you believe it, one of my boys had to witness their signatures, for there wasn't one of the six rebels who could write his name. Of course we disarmed and dismounted them, and stood among the bushes in the front yard and saw them make tracks in the direction of Camp Pinckney; but the hounds were put on our trail, all the same, and the next day they pressed us so close that we had to shoot some of the leading ones. And what surprised us was that those dogs would not attempt to follow our trail across a piece of wet ground. They would take a circle around it and pick up our trail again on the other side where the ground was dry."
"They'll do it every time," said Ned. "And it isn't a part of their training, either. That's the way they hunt deer and foxes, and it is something they pick up themselves without any teaching."
"Well, it's pretty bright in the dogs, I must say, and we were sorry to shoot them, but there was no help for it. First and last we must have killed half or two-thirds of the pack, but they have been strongly reinforced; for, judging by the yelping we heard to-day, there are more hounds on our trail now than there were at the start."
"You were very fortunate in being able to keep out of their way," said Mrs. Griffin, "and I don't see how you managed it."
"I don't either, madam; but somehow we did it. We can't keep it up much longer, however, for we are nearly exhausted, and I wish from the bottom of my heart that we were in sight of those gunboats at this minute. But we'll get there in due time, and we'll not go empty-handed. We made an important capture this afternoon, and perhaps have saved our scouts and gunboats, as well as the Union people in the settlement, some trouble. It's a fortunate thing for him that we didn't know what he was when we first caught sight of him; but as he was in full uniform we supposed he was a soldier and treated him accordingly."
"And—and what was he?" faltered Ned, while his mother looked anxious and bent forward in her chair to catch the corporal's answer. Something told them that they were about to hear bad news.
"A miserable Home Guard and a captain besides," replied the soldier. "Of course after he surrendered we couldn't shoot him down in cold blood, as his kind would have served us if we had chanced to fall into their power, but we'll put him where he'll not fight any more gunboats for one while, I bet you."
"How and where did you capture him?" was Ned's next question. It wasn't the one that trembled on his tongue, but it was as near as he could get to it.
"Why, we had been wading for two miles in a little bayou that brought us through a cornfield to the river side of the road, and at last we hid in a grove of evergreens from which we could command a view in all directions. We stayed there for an hour, listening to the faint baying of the hounds in the timber on the other side of the road, and never once dreaming that anybody would come near us, when to our surprise we saw a gate open, and a single horseman ride down the lane that led straight to our place of concealment. I tell you we were scared, for we expected to see the dogs and all our pursuers come through the gate after him, but he stopped to put up the bars and then came on alone; and when he approached nearer we saw that he could not be one of the men we were looking for, because his horse was fresh and clean, and didn't have the splashed legs and body he would if he had been chasing us through the swamp for three days and more. We saw, too, that he and his horse were at outs about something, for every once in a while he would pound the animal with his whip as if he were very mad at him; and the last time he tried it, which he did when he was within less than a hundred feet of our hiding-place, the horse jumped and threw him as slick as you please, and I was glad of it. That was the time we rushed out and took him in."