"That's as easy as picking up rocks in the road. A nigger will sell his immortal soul for ten dollars, and I'll git him to leave the door open some night when he's got a job of jiggering on the peanner and whistling with his mouth at the tavern in the woods."
"But that's horse-stealing."
"No, it ain't; it's turn and turn about. How many horses has old Forrest took from the loyal citizens of Tennessee? You couldn't count 'em if you was to try. I'll give you three hundred dollars for them three horses delivered at my brother's house—three hundred dollars in gold—and you'll have two men to help you. Don't you call that picking up money?"
"An' whilst I'm a-gittin' the horses, what'll you be doing?"
"Ain't I told you?" answered the man with some display of irritation. "I'll be putting up the money, the cold cash. What more do you want? I've always heard that good money is good enough for anybody."
They passed on, and I slipped from the stable, taking care to lock it behind me, and followed them.
V
I have never spent a more disagreeable hour than that which passed while I was engaged in following the two men for the purpose of identifying them. The weather was cold and the night dark, and there were peppery little showers of sleet. The two left the town proper and turned into a by-way that I had travelled many times in my rambles in the countryside. I knew that it led to a house that had been built for a suburban home, but now, in the crowded condition of the town, was used as a tavern. It had attracted the suspicion of General Forrest and I knew that he had placed it under the surveillance of the Independents. It was a very orderly public-house, however, and nothing had ever occurred there to justify the suspicions of the General.
The two men I followed could have reached their destination in less than twenty minutes if they had gone forward with the briskness that the weather justified; but there was an argument of some kind between them—I judged that the stuttering man had no stomach for the part he was to play as a horse-thief. At any rate, there was a dispute of some kind, and they stopped on the road at least half a dozen times to have it out. One point settled, another would arise before they had gone far, and then they would stop again; and at last, so dark did the wood become, and so low their conversation grew, that I passed within three feet of them and never knew it until it was too late to betray the astonishment I naturally felt.
I simply jogged along the path and pretended that I had not seen them. I went along briskly, and in a few minutes came to the tavern. The door was shut, the weather being cold, but I knew by the lights shining through the windows that a hospitable fire was burning on the hearth. There was no need to knock at the door. I heard the jangling piano playing an accompaniment to the flute-like whistling of Harry Herndon's negro. Remembering his carelessness, I felt like going into the tavern and giving him a frailing. The inclination was so strong that I held my hand on the door-knob until the first flush of anger had subsided. It was a very fortunate thing for me, as it turned out, that Whistling Jim was present, but at the moment the turn of a hair would have caused me to justify much that the people of the North have said in regard to the cruelty of Southerners to the negro.