"But Mr. Westall, just look at the chain," protested Jeff.
"But, Mr. West-all, just look at the chain," protested Jeff.
"Well, look at the chain. You're a Jackson man, I suppose?" he added, nodding at Rodney.
"Every day in the week," replied the boy. "And that's what brought me up here from Louisiana. I belong to a company of partisans; but our Governor wouldn't take us the way we wanted to go, and here I am. I want to find Price as soon as I can. Run your eye over that telegram, if you please, and then read this letter."
While the man, who had been addressed as Mr. Westall, was reading the documents Rodney passed over to him, his four companions came into the cabin bringing with them a fifth, at the sight of whom Rodney Gray started as if he had been shot.
CHAPTER VII.
THE EMERGENCY MEN.
"Great Scott!" was Rodney Gray's mental ejaculation. "That is Tom
Percival if I ever saw him."
If his own father had suddenly been brought into the cabin a prisoner in the hands of armed men, the Barrington boy could not have been more amazed. He winked hard and looked again, but his eyes had not deceived him; and even if there had been the slightest doubt in his mind regarding the identity of the prisoner who had been denounced as "an abolition horse-thief," it would have vanished when he saw the expression that came upon Tom's face the moment their eyes met. Tom was one of Dick Graham's firm friends, but while a student at the Barrington Academy he had often declared that if Dick ever so far forgot himself as to enlist in the rebel army, he (Tom) would go into the Union service on purpose to whip him back into a proper frame of mind; and his being there a prisoner led Rodney to believe that he had kept his promise, so far as enlisting was concerned. But there was one thing about it: Tom might be a Union soldier, but he was neither an abolitionist nor a horse-thief.
"It is Percival, sure enough, but what in the name of sense and Tom Walker is he doing here?" was the next question that came into Rodney's mind.