“I’ll tell you about it, if you like.”
“I don’t object.”
“I don’t know as I will, either; it would hardly be prudent for me to do so. You may be one of those shrewd Yankees, after all. You know you wear Yankee colors,” added the chief, doubtfully.
“I tell you I was born in Winchester, not twenty miles from here; and I am no more a Yankee than you are,” protested the major.
“I’ll trust you,” said the leader. “You can’t spoil the job, if you don’t help us. You are a tonguy fellow, and I want you more than I want the girl that promised to marry me when the war is over. I’ve got the smartest set of men that ever sat in a saddle. They are all Texans.”
“I see they are,” added De Banyan, glancing at the cutthroats who formed the squad.
“I’ve got the keenest scout on the lookout for me that you can find this side of the Rocky Mountains. He’s a young fellow of eighteen, and goes inside the Yankee lines like a native. We go in for making money out of this thing, while we do a good job for the South.”
“Of course,” said De Banyan, carelessly.
“There’s a pay-master coming down from Nashville, on one of these trains, with a heap of greenbacks to pay off the Yankee army. We want those greenbacks, and we shall have them too.”
“If you can get them,” suggested De Banyan.