"Down in the woods on Riley's place, a little piece back of nigger
Toby's cabin. Bud Goble's got 'em."
"Hold on, or you will spoil everything," whispered Dixon, looking over his shoulder at Marcy Gray, who began breathing very hard and trying to work his way closer to the fence. "What does Bud intend to do with them?"
"Well, it's jest this a-way," replied Caleb. "A day or two ago Bud got a letter from somebody tellin' him that them two boys oughter be drove outen the kentry, kase they was Union all over an' preachin' up their docterings as often as they got a chance. Bud, he thought so too, an' this afternoon he grabbed 'em."
"Who wrote that letter?" inquired Dixon.
"There don't none of us know; Bud himself don't know, kase there wasn't no name to it."
"It was written by some coward who was afraid to let himself be known, was it? And Bud acted upon the advice that letter contained and grabbed the boys, did he? How did he go about it?" inquired Dixon; and his three companions, who knew how quick he was to get angry, wondered that he could speak so quietly and without the slightest show of excitement.
"When they was in town to-day Bud sont 'em word that there was a sick man up the road a piece, an' asked them would they get some quinine an' take it to him," replied Caleb.
"And of course they went," said Dixon, through his clenched teeth. "Bud worked upon their feelings and caught them as easy as falling off a log. When they got to that cabin there wasn't any sick man there, but a party of ruffians who jumped on Rodney and Dick and made prisoners of them," added Dixon, who was so impatient that he could not wait for Caleb to tell the story. "Was that the way of it?"
"It were; but you see he got the wrong one. Both of 'em are the wrong ones."
"How so?"