And Frank proceeded to name several who had really been with him that morning, but not on the forage after poultry. On being called up and questioned, they were able to give the most positive testimony, to the effect that they had neither stolen any fowls themselves nor been with any party that had. In the mean time the sergeant and second lieutenant instituted a search through the company's tents, and succeeded in finding a solitary turkey, which nobody could give any account of, and which nobody claimed. This the secessionist identified; averring that there were also a dozen more, besides several chickens, for which redress was due. But not one of them could be discovered, perhaps because they were so skilfully concealed, but more probably because those who searched were not anxious to find.
Captain Edney accordingly paid the man for the loss of the single turkey, which he ordered sent immediately to the hospital. He also told the secessionist that he would pay him for all the poultry he was ready to swear had been appropriated by the men of his company, provided he would first take the oath of allegiance to the United States. This Buckley sullenly refused to do, and he was immediately conducted by a guard outside the lines. Seth Tucket followed at a short distance, saying, as he put his hand in his pocket, as if to produce some money, "Say, friend! better le' me pay ye for that gobble I stole. Any thing in reason, ye know."
But Buckley gave him only a glance of compressed rage, and marched off in silence, with disappointment and revenge in his heart.
THE EXPEDITION MOVES.
Frank won the greatest credit from his comrades by the manner in which he had gone through the investigation. And the fowls, which those who searched could not discover, found their way somehow to the cooks, and back again to the boys, and were shared among their companions, who had a feast and a good time generally.
But when all was over, and the excitement which carried Frank through had subsided, and it was night, and he lay in the darkness and solitude of the tent, with his comrades asleep around him,—then came sober reflection; and he thought of the poor man who had lost his turkeys, and who, for one, had got no fun out of the business; and he remembered that he had, to all intents and purposes, lied to Captain Edney; and he knew in his heart that he had done a dishonest thing.
Yes, he had actually been engaged in stealing turkeys. He was guilty of an act of which, a few weeks before, he would have deemed himself absolutely incapable. All the mitigating circumstances of the case, which had lately stood out so clear and strong as almost to hide the offence from his moral vision, now faded, and shrunk away, and the wrong itself stood forth, alone, in its undisguised ugliness.
"What is it to me that the man is a secessionist? That doesn't give us the right to rob him. He is not in arms against the government; and we don't know that he assists the rebels in any way, either by giving them information or money. Perhaps he had good reason to hate the Union soldiers. If he had not before, he has now. I wish I had let his turkeys alone."
These words Frank did not exactly frame to himself, lying there in the dark and silent tent; but so said the soul within him. And the next day the culpability of his conduct was brought home still more forcibly to his conscience by the receipt of a box from home. It contained, besides a turkey, pies, cakes, apples, and letters. And in one of the letters his mother wrote,—