"No, but I confess I would like to hear it," I replied. "I wish to know whose hospitality I am about to enjoy, a hospitality for which I can never thank you too much, for if I had not met you I might have starved or frozen to death in this wilderness."
"I am Colonel John Greene Hetherill, C.S.A.," he replied.
"C.S.A.?" I said, looking at his gray uniform.
"Yes, 'C.S.A.,'" he replied. His tone was emphatic and haughty. "Confederate States of America. What have you to say against it?"
"Nothing," I replied. "I leave that to the historians."
"Who are mostly liars," he said.
He looked at me with an expression of undoubted hostility.
"I would have liked it much better had you been a Southerner and not a Yankee," he said. "How can I trust you?"
"I hope I am a gentleman," I replied. "At any rate, I am lame and in straits, and under no circumstances would I violate your hospitality."