"He is a schoolmate who left his own State because things didn't go to suit him, and who intends to enlist the first chance he gets."
"On which side?" inquired the leader, squinting up both his eyes and nodding at Tom as if to say that he had him there.
"Do you imagine that he would make a journey of almost a thousand miles for the sake of enlisting in the Confederate army when he might have done that at home?" asked Tom, in reply. "You must be crazy."
"Not so crazy as you may think," said the leader, who seemed to be sure of his ground. "We have the best of evidence that he is secesh."
"What sort of evidence?"
"His own word."
"Is the man who heard me say that outside?" asked Rodney, who thought by the way Mr. Truman and his wife looked at him that it was high time he was saying something for himself. "If he is, bring him in and let me face him. You have no right to condemn me until you let me see who my accuser is."
"That's the idea," said Tom. "Fetch him in."
The boys played their parts so well, in spite of the alarm they felt and the danger they knew they were in, and looked so honest and truthful that the leader was nonplussed, and Mr. Truman and his wife were firmly convinced that their visitors had made a mistake. There were reasons why the latter could not produce Rodney's accuser, and for a minute or two some of them acted as though they might be willing to let the matter drop right where it was. But there is always some "smart man" in every party who thinks he knows a little more than anybody else, and it was so in this case; and when he spoke, he "put his foot in it."
"Didn't you say to-day in the presence of—of—"