The old man understood the times. His knowledge of the war, with all its recent and important movements, was thorough and accurate, although he was careful and somewhat reticent, even in his communications to us. In order to test his professed knowledge of us, and to ascertain all we could relative to our pursuers, we plied him with various questions.
“Well, uncle,” said we, “I suppose you know we are running from the conscript?”
“No, sah, I knows you is the Yankees what broke out o’ jail at Macon, dat’s what I knows.”
“You’re right, uncle. Now what do you know about this war?”
“I doesn’t know much about it, sah; only I knows dat dey say, if de Yankees whips, de darkies all be free, but if dese har rebels whips, den we be slaves.”
“Which do you prefer should gain the day?”
“Why, God bless you, massa! does you tink I’s a fool? Course, I wants you to whip.”
“You say they are hunting us; how many have they after us?”
“I doesn’t know jis zacly; but I knows dat tree men come to massa day ’fore yesterday for to git a bloodhound to hunt Yankees with what runned away from Macon prison.”
I confess that the thought of being pursued by bloodhounds was horrifying in the extreme; and notwithstanding we had already seen two large packs at different times upon our track, the possible death by these fierce monsters in this wilderness made my blood run cold.