“So we’ve had all our trouble for nothing,” Mr. Deometari suggested.
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Henderson; “we’ve been saved a great deal of trouble. Johnson is gone, and I have here an order for Pruitt’s release.”
“If we had known all this,” remarked Mr. Deometari, “Maxwell would be safe in bed, where I suspect he ought to be.—My son,” he went on, “it is a pity to have you riding back and forth in the night.”
“Just to please a fat man with the whimsies,” Mr. Blandford observed.
“Oh, it is no trouble to me,” Joe protested. “It is almost like a book, only I don’t exactly understand it all. What were you going to do with Captain Johnson?”
“Me? oh, I—well, the fact is, Deo was commanding my regiment to-night,” replied Mr. Blandford. He seemed to be embarrassed.
“It is all very simple,” said Mr. Deometari.
“When you get a little older you’ll find a great many people like Captain Johnson. He had a little power, and he has used it so as to turn all the people here against him. Another trouble is, that he used to belong to the regulars, where the discipline is as strict as it can be. He has tried to be too strict here, and these Confederate people won’t stand it. The private soldier thinks he is as good as a commissioned officer, and sometimes better. A provost-marshal is a sort of military chief of police, and, when his commander is as far away as Macon, he can do a good deal of harm, especially if he has a streak of meanness running through him. Johnson has made enemies here by the hundred. Worst of all, he has treated the wives of soldiers very badly. You know all about his spite at John Pruitt. We were going to take him to-night to Armour’s Ferry, put him across the river, and give him to understand that we could get along without him.”
“And he would never come back?” asked Joe.
“No,” said Mr. Deometari, “he would never come back.”