And he and Si shuddered at the thought of that good old man in the hands of the merciless scoundrels who infested the mountains and woods beyond the camps.
"Yes," mourned Si, "Pap's likely to mosey out into the country, jest like he would on Bean Blossom Crick, and stop at the first house he come to, and set down with 'em on the porch, and talk about the weather, and the crops, and the measles in the neighborhood, and the revivals, and the price o' pork and corn, and whether they'd better hold their wheat till Spring, and who was comin' up for office, and all the time the bushwhackers'd be sneakin' up on him, an' him know no more 'bout it than where the blackbirds was roostin'. He's jest that innocent and unsuspiciouslike."
"If they've ketched him," said Shorty fiercely, "we'll find out about it, and when we git able, we'll go out there and kill and burn everything for five miles around. I'll do it, if I have to spend the rest o' my life at hard labor on the Dry Tortugas."
They heard the rattle of light wheels on the frozen ground outside, and the hoof-beats of a quickly-moving horse.
"Buggy or spring-wagon," muttered Si with a farmer boy's instinctive interpretation of such sounds. "What's it doin' in camp? Strange horse. In better condition than any around here."
The vehicle stopped in front of the corn-crib at the Deacon's command, "Whoa!"
"Gracious—there's Pap now," ejaculated Si, with whom memory went in a bound to the many times he had listened for his father's coming and heard that order.
"Hello, boys," called out the Deacon. "How are you? Shorty, come out here."
Shorty sprang up with something of his old-time alacrity, and Si made an effort to rise, but was too weak.
"Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got."