CHAPTER VIII.
We were not long in reaching the house of the deputy sheriff. A loud call brought him out to the fence. And when we had quickly told him what was wanted, he whistled to express his gratification or his surprise and I fancied that I saw his hair bristling in the moonlight, for he had come out bareheaded.
"Now let me think a minute, boys," said he. "I have been an officer long enough to know that it ain't much credit to take a fellow after he's dead—most anybody can do that. What we want is to capture them and to do that we've got to have more men. Alf, I tell you what you do. You and your friend slip over to old Josh's and keep watch to see that they don't get away, and I'll ride as fast as I can and get General Lundsford and your daddy. What do you say?"
"I say it's a first-rate plan," Alf answered. "I don't think the General would like to be left out and I know that father wouldn't. Come on, Bill."
The negro's house was not far away, and hastening silently through the woods we soon came within sight of it, on the side of a hill, at the edge of a worn-out field. We softened our foot-steps as we drew near unto the cabin, and we could hear the ruffians within, singing, swearing, dancing. We halted at the edge of the woods, within ten feet of the door, and listened. "Let us slip up and take a peep at them," said Alf; and carefully we climbed over the old fence, taking care not to break any of the rotting rails lest we might sound an alarm. We made not the slightest noise, but just as we were within touching distance of the cabin, a dog sprang from behind a box in the chimney corner. I don't know how much noise it might have been his intention to make or whether he belonged to the stealthy breed of curs whose delight it is to make a silent lunge at the legs of a visitor, but I do know that he made not a sound, for I grabbed him by the throat and the first thing he knew his eyes were popping out between their fuzzy lids. I choked him until I thought he must be dead, and then, with a swing, I threw him far over the fence into the woods. We listened and heard him scrambling in the dried leaves and then he was still. The cabin was built of poles and was old. Many a rain had beaten against the "chinking" and we had no trouble in finding openings through which we could plainly see all that went forward within. Just as I looked in I heard the twang of a banjo, and I saw the old negro sitting on the edge of a bed, picking the instrument, while two white men were patting a break-down and two others were trying to dance. At the fire-place a negro woman was frying meat and baking a hoe-cake.
"Generman," said the negro, twanging his strings and measuring his words to suit his tune, "don't want right now to be so pertinence—be so pertinence; but, yes, I'd like to know, hi, hi, hi, yes, like to know whut you gwine gimme fur dis yere, yes, whut you gwine gimme fur all dis yere?"
The patting ceased instantly, and the two men danced not another shuffle, and one of them, Scott, I afterward learned, cried out: "What, you old scoundrel, air you dunnin' us already?"
"Oh, naw, sah, skuze me," said the old negro, "I ain't doin' dat, fur I dun tole you dat I didn' want ter be pertinence, but dar's some things, you know, dat er pusson would like ter un'erstan', an' whut I gwine git fur all dis yere is one o' 'em. I has gib you licker an' I has gib you music, an' wife, dar, is cookin' supper fur you, an' it ain' no mo' den reason dat I'd wanter know whut we gwine git fur it."
"Well, we'll pay you all right enough," replied Scott Aimes. "You've always treated us white, and you are about the only man in this neighborhood that has."