“We aint got no proof agin anybody,” continued Ben, “an’ I don’t know’s I blame you all fur not wantin’ to speak out. But mind this: I shall have an eye on everybody in camp—everybody, I said—an’ the fust one who crooks his finger will have to tell a tol’able straight story to keep out of trouble. Fall in, and counter-march by file, left. Quick time now, an’ keep your guns in your hands, kase when them rebs up to the house find that we uns aint goin’ to run into their trap, they may try to head us off.”
The return march was made in silence, each member of the squad being engrossed with his own thoughts. Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin were uppermost in their minds, and there was not one of the refugees who did not tell himself that it would be better for the settlement if those two mischief-makers were well out of it. They reached camp without any trouble and reported their failure and talked about it as freely as though they never suspected that there was somebody in their midst who was to blame for it. Acting on the hint Ben Hawkins gave them the parolled Confederates watched everybody, their comrades as well as the civilians, and talked incessantly in the hope that the guilty one might be led to betray himself by an inadvertent word or gesture; but they paid the least attention to the man who could have told them the most about it. Ben Hawkins would have suspected himself almost as soon as he would have suspected Buffum.
Monday evening came all too soon for Marcy Gray, who, with a feeling of depression he had never before experienced, made ready to take his turn at foraging. He announced that it was his intention to go to his mother’s house alone, because one person might be able to approach the dwelling unobserved, while three could not make a successful fight if the enemy were on the watch. No one offered objection to this arrangement, if we except the boy Julius, who positively refused to be left behind, declaring that if his master would not take him to the main-land in his boat, he would swim the bayou and follow him anyhow.
When the time came for Marcy to start he shook hands with all the refugees, Buffum included, and pushed off from the island alone. He concealed his canoe when he reached the other shore and was about to plunge into the woods, when a slight splashing in the water and the sound of suppressed conversation came from the bank he had just left. At least two or three persons were shoving off from the island to follow him, and Marcy, believing that he could call them by name, waited for them to come up. The night was so dark and the bushes so thick that his friendly pursuers did not see him until the bow of their boat touched the shore and they began to step out.
“Now, Ben,” said Marcy reproachfully, “I shall feel much more at my ease if you will turn around and go back.”
“Oh, hursh, honey!” replied Julius. “We uns gwine fight de rebels, too.”
“Don’t you know that if you and your friends are captured you will be treated as deserters?” continued Marcy, addressing himself to Hawkins and paying no attention to Julius. “You have been ordered to report for duty and haven’t done it, and I suppose you know what that means.”
“A heap better’n you do at this time, but not better’n you will if you are tooken an’ packed off to Williamston,” answered Ben. “You’d die in less’n a month if you was forced into the army, kase you aint the right build to stand the hard knocks you’ll get. But we uns don’t ’low to be took pris’ner or let you be took, either.”
“I appreciate your kindness——” began Marcy.
“You needn’t say no more, kase we uns has made it up to go with you, an’ we aint goin’ to turn back,” interrupted Ben. “We uns will stay outside the house an’ watch, an’ you can go in an’ get the grub. Pull the boat ashore, boys, an’ shove her into the bresh out of sight.”