"May be so. That's what he is."
"Does he belong to your company?"
"No; but he belongs to our regiment, and that's how I came to get acquainted with him. He's got more friends than any other fellow I know of, and he will be glad to see an old schoolmate once more. I have heard him tell of Rodney Gray and the scrapes he got into by speaking his mind so freely, and I am not the only one in the regiment who thinks that the Barrington Military Academy is a disgrace to the town and State in which it is located. The citizens ought to have turned out some night and torn it up root and branch."
"They would have had a good time trying it," said Tom. "The boys punched one another's head on the parade ground now and then, but it wasn't safe for an outsider to interfere with our private affairs."
"Why, the Confederates wouldn't fight for the Union boys, would they?" exclaimed the lieutenant. "That's a little the strangest thing I ever heard of. We don't do business that way in Missouri, and I could see that our boys didn't like it when you and Gray stuck up for those Yankee sympathizers back there in the house."
Perhaps they wouldn't have liked it either, if they had known how Tom
and Rodney had "stuck up" for each other ever since they met at Cedar
Bluff landing. But that was a piece of news that Tom did not touch upon.
He intended to reserve it for Dick Graham's private ear.
"And in the meantime I mustn't neglect to ascertain just when and where the lieutenant expects to rejoin his regiment, so that I can take the first chance that offers to get away and strike out for home," thought Tom. "Dick wouldn't expect to see me in Rodney Gray's company, and might betray me before he knew what he was doing."
Having saddled and bridled the horses Tom and the lieutenant returned to the house, the former somewhat anxious to know if anything had been said during his absence that could be brought up against him. But a glance and a reassuring smile from Rodney were enough to show him that he had nothing to fear on that score. The guards stood at the windows watching the party inside, the horses had been brought into the yard in readiness for the squad to mount, and Rodney and the captain were sitting on the front steps. The prisoners, if such they could be called, were too sullen to exchange a word with the Confederates, and the captain thought it beneath his dignity to talk to Union men; and Rodney was glad to have it so.
"Bring in the guards and get a-going," was the order the captain gave when his lieutenant came up; and this made it evident to the well-drilled Barrington boys that Captain Hubbard's company of Rangers were not the only Confederates who had a good deal to learn before they could call themselves soldiers. But his men understood the order, and it was the work of but a few minutes for them to get into their saddles and set off down the road, and they did it without paying any more attention to the men in the house. Rodney rode beside the captain at the head of the column, Tom and the lieutenant coming next in line. The former thought it was a good evening's work all around, and that Merrick's red-eyed darkey could not have done him a greater service if he had been a friend to him instead of an enemy. He had had a narrow escape from being taken into the presence of men he hoped he might never see again, but he was all right now. So was Tom, for if he wasn't already beyond the danger of betrayal, he certainly would be by the time daylight came.
"No; we shall not march all night," said the captain, in response to an inquiry from Rodney. "We have been in the saddle pretty steadily for the last week, and both men and horses are in need of rest. But I shall take good care to get out of this settlement before going into camp. I don't want to be ambushed."