"Well, if another man stole the horse why do you lay it on to Percival?" inquired Rodney, who could hardly keep from showing how angry he was.
"You see the matter is just this way," replied the Emergency man, as if he scarcely knew how to explain the situation! "If young Percival had called upon his uncle for a visit, and gone away again without taking so much interest in the affairs of the settlement, we wouldn't have done any more than to give him warning that he wasn't wanted there; but when we saw him and his uncle with their heads together, and learned from some of our spies that Union men had been caught going to and from old Percival's house at all hours of the day and night, we made up our minds that there was something wrong about this young fellow; so we telegraphed to Springfield, and found out that he was an officer in a company of Home Guards who had offered their services to Lyon. Well, you bet we were surprised to find that he was the son of the only man in his county who dared to vote for Abe Lincoln, and it made us afraid of him. too."
"A whole settlement afraid of one boy?" exclaimed Rodney.
"Exactly. We didn't know which way to turn for the Union men are in the majority in our county, as they are all through the northern and eastern parts of Missouri, and we didn't dare do anything openly for fear of being bushwhacked. As good luck would have it we succeeded in scaring Morehouse out of the country about that time, and when he went, he took one of the best horses in the settlement with him. That gave us something to work on, and we made it up among ourselves that we would lay the theft on to young Percival, take him out of his bed that night and serve him as the law directs."
"Does that mean that you would have hung him?" asked Rodney, with a shudder.
"That's generally the way we do with horse-thieves up here," replied Mr.
Westall. "How do you serve them in your part of the country?"
"We put them in jail when they have been proved guilty," answered Rodney. "But you have said, in so many words, that this boy didn't steal the horse—that he was stolen by a man who ran away with him."
Before replying the Emergency man paused to relight his pipe which he had allowed to go out.