“Serving my captain, whom I love.”
“Good! What are you doing here now?”
“That will require considerable explanation,” added Nettleton.
“Go on,” said Price.
“Well, General, some darn skunk murdered my captain, and when our troops left Grand Prairie, on their return to Springfield, I remained behind to search for his body. I am no spy.”
“But you said you were a spy, serving General Price,” replied one of the soldiers who had brought Nettleton to the rebel camp.
“How can you explain this?” asked Price.
“Well, ye see, General, Miss Sally—no, I mean Miss Mamie—that’s the captain’s sister—will break her poor heart and die of grief if she can’t learn something about her brother. Them darn skunks as arrested me told me that Captain Hayward was not killed. Besides this, as nice a darn sk— I mean as good a man as ever lived, and one who loves Miss Sally—no—that Miss Sally keeps running in my head—one as loves Miss Mamie, is accused of murdering the captain. But I know better, for I found proof enough to convict the right one. I wanted to tell Mamie that Sally—darn Sally—that her brother was not dead, and to clear Lieutenant Wells and convict the one as did the deed. So I told them sneaks as how I was a spy, in hopes they’d let me alone.”
“Would you give any information you may have gleaned here, if I should set you free?”
“I ain’t no such darn skunk, General. Honor is honor bright with me.”