Two miles north of Old Lee’s I came to the State boundary. While I was still in Mississippi, I saw, just over the line, in Tennessee, a wild figure of a man riding on before me. He was mounted on a raw-boned mule, and wore a flapping gray blanket which gave him a fantastic appearance. The old hero’s story had set me thinking of bushwhackers, and I half fancied this solitary horseman—or rather mule-man—to be one of that amiable gentry. He had pursued me from Corinth, and passed me unwittingly while I was sitting in Old Lee’s kitchen. He was riding fast to overtake me. Or perhaps he was only an innocent country fellow returning from town. I switched on, and soon came near enough to notice that the mule’s tail was fancifully clipped and trimmed to resemble a rope with a tassel at the end of it; also that the rider’s face was mysteriously muffled in a red handkerchief.
I was almost at his side, when hearing voices in the woods behind me, I looked around, and saw two more mounted men coming after us at a swift gallop. The thought flashed through my mind that those were the fellow’s accomplices. One to one had not seemed to me very formidable; but three to one would not be so pleasant. I pressed my iron gray immediately alongside the tassel-tailed mule, and accosted the rider, determined to learn what manner of man he was before the others arrived. The startled look he gave me, and the blue nose, with its lucid pendent drop, that peered out of the sanguinary handkerchief, showed me that he was as harmless a traveller as myself. He was a lad about eighteen years of age. He had tied up his ears, to defend them from the cold, and the bandage over them had prevented him from hearing my approach until I was close upon him.
“It’s a kule day,” he remarked, with numb lips, as he reined his mule aside to let me pass at a respectful distance,—for it was evident he regarded me with quite as much distrust as I had him.
At the same time the two other mounted men came rushing upon us, through the half-frozen puddles, with splash and clatter and loud boisterous oaths; and one of them drew from his pocket, and brandished over the tossing mane of his horse, something so like a pistol that I half expected a shot.
“How are ye?” said he, halting his horse, and spattering me all over with muddy water. “Right cold morning! Hello, Zeek!” to the rider of the tassel-tailed mule. “I didn’t know ye, with yer face tied up that fashion. Take a drink?” Zeek declined. “Take a drink, stranger?” And he offered me the pistol, which proved to be a flask of whiskey. I declined also. Upon which the fellow held the flask unsteadily to his own lips for some seconds, then passed it to his companion. After drinking freely, they spurred on again, with splash and laughter and oaths, leaving Zeek and me riding alone together.
CHAPTER XLII.
ZEEK.
“Didn’t I see your horse tied to Old Lee’s gate?” said Zeek. And that led to a discussion of the old hero’s character.
“Is he a Union man?”
“I kain’t say; but that’s the story they tell on him. One of the men he killed was one of our neighbors; a man we used to consider right respectable; but he tuke to thieving during the wa’, and got to be of no account. That was the way with a many I know. You may stop at a house now whur they’ll steal your horse, and like as not rob and murder ye.”
Zeek told me he lived on the edge of the battle-field; and I engaged him to guide me to it. He thought I must be going to search for the body of some friend who fell there. When I told him I was from the North, and that my object was simply to visit the battle-field, he looked at me with amazement.