“Hear that!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari. “If any but these friendly ears had heard all that, we’d have been put on Johnson’s black list, and maybe we’d have been transferred from the black list to the guard-house. Now, then,” continued Mr. Deometari, “you don’t know anything about the Relief Committee, of course, and as you might be inquiring around about it, and asking what John Pruitt, the deserter, has to do with the Relief Committee, I’ll tell you. But, my dear boy, you must remember this: It’s not a matter to be joked about or talked of anywhere outside of this room. Now, don’t forget. It isn’t much of a secret; it is simply a piece of business that concerns only a few people. Do you remember reading or hearing about the retreat from Laurel Hill?” asked Mr. Deometari, moving his chair back and unwinding the stem of his Turkish pipe. “That was in the early part of the war, and it will never cut much of a figure in history, but some of those who were in that retreat will never forget it. In the confusion of getting away a little squad of us, belonging mostly to the First Georgia Regiment, were cut off from the main body. When we halted to get our bearings there were not more than a dozen of us.”
“Seventeen, all told,” remarked Mr. Blandford.
“Yes,” said Mr. Deometari, “seventeen. We were worse than lost. We were on the mountains in a strange country. Behind us was the enemy and before us was a forest of laurel that stretched away as far as the eye could reach. To the right or to the left was the same uncertainty. We could hear nothing of the rest of the command. To fire a gun was to invite capture, and there was nothing for us to do but push ahead through the scrubby growth.”
“The commissary was absent on a furlough,” remarked Mr. Blandford.
“Yes,” said Mr. Deometari, laughing. “The commissary was missing, and rations were scanty. Some of the men had none at all. Some had a little hard-tack, and others had a handful or so of meal. Though the weather was bitter cold, we built no fire the first night, for fear of attracting the attention of the enemy. The next day and the next we struggled on. We saved our rations the best we could, but they gave out after a while, and there was nothing left but a little meal which John Pruitt was saving up for Tom Henderson, who was ill and weak with fever. Every day, when we’d stop to breathe awhile, Pruitt would make Henderson a little cupful of gruel, while the rest of us ate corn, or roots, or chewed the inside bark of the trees.‘’
“And nobody begrudged Tom his gruel,” said Mr. Blandford, “though I’ll swear the sight of it gave me the all-overs.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari. “Somebody did begrudge Tom the gruel. One night this Captain Johnson, who is lording it around here now, thought Pruitt and the rest of us were asleep, and he made an effort to steal the little meal that was left. Well, Pruitt was very wide awake, and he caught Johnson and gave him a tremendous flogging; but the villain had already got into the haversack, and in the struggle the meal was spilled.”
Mr. Deometari coiled the stem of his pipe around his neck, and blew a great cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.
“But what about the Relief Committee, Mr. Deo?” inquired Joe.
“Why, to be sure! A nice story-teller am I!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari. “I had forgotten the Relief Committee entirely. Well, we went forward, growing weaker and weaker every day, until finally we came to a ravine.”