Chapter Thirty Six.
The Head-Quarters of the Guerilla.
Mine were anything but agreeable. I was pained and puzzled. I was pained to think that she—dearer to me than life—was thus exposed to the dangers that surrounded us. It was her sister that had occupied the other hammock.
“Are they alone? Are they prisoners in the hands of these half-robbers? May not their hospitality to us have brought them under proscription? And are they not being carried—father, mother, and all—before some tribunal? Or are they travelling for protection with this band—protection against the less scrupulous robbers that infest the country?”
It was not uncommon upon the Rio Grande, when rich families journeyed from point to point, to pay for an escort of this sort. This may elucidate—.
“But I tell yez I did hear a crack; and, be my sowl! it was the sargint’s rifle, or I’ve lost me sinses intirely.”
“What is it?” I asked, attracted to the conversation of my comrades.
“Chane says he heard a shot, and thinks it was Lincoln’s,” answered Clayley.