"Well," said the corporal, "you turn right around and drive me to General Mitchel's camp just as fast as the law will let you."
"But, boss," objected the other, "Massa will whip me if I do."
"And I'll shoot you if you don't," returned the corporal.
This last argument was a convincing one and half an hour later General Mitchel and his forces were enormously impressed by seeing Corporal Pike, who had been reported shot, drive up back of a magnificent horse in a new buggy and beside a wonderfully-dressed coachman. The general was even more impressed when the corporal reported that the bridge was gone and gave him an accurate statement as to the Confederate forces.
Corporal Pike found Mr. Pomeroy's horse a very good substitute for his faithful Bill and, to his surprise, the coachman went with the horse, since he was afraid to go back, and became a cook in General Mitchel's mess.
CHAPTER XI
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
In the old days of the Indian wars a favorite amusement of a raiding party was to make their captives run the gauntlet. On their return home two long lines of not only the warriors, but even of the women and children would be formed armed with clubs, arrows, tomahawks and whips. The unfortunate captive was stationed at one end of this aisle of enemies and given the choice of being burned at the stake or of running for his life between the lines from one end to the other. Sometimes a swift runner and dodger escaped enough of the blows to stagger blinded with blood from a score of wounds, but still alive, across the line which marked the end of this grim race against death. It was always a desperate chance. Only the certainty of death if it were not taken ever caused any man to enter such a terrible competition. There is no record of even the most hardened Indian fighter ever running the gauntlet for any life save his own.
In the summer of 1863, three men ran the gauntlet of shot and shell and rifle-fire for forty miles to save an army, with death dogging them all the way. Brigadier-General Thomas, who afterward earned the title of the Rock of Chickamauga by his brave stand in that disastrous battle, was entrenched on one of the spurs of the hills around Chattanooga. General Bragg with a much superior army of Confederates had hunted the Union soldiers mile after mile. At times they had stopped and fought, at times they had escaped by desperate marches. Now exhausted and ringed about by the whole Confederate Army, they must soon have help or be starved into surrender. Yet only forty miles to the eastward was a body of thirty thousand men commanded by General Stockton. This general was one of those valuable men who obey orders without any reasoning about the why and the wherefore of the same. He had been commanded to hold a certain pass in the mountains until further orders and that pass he would hold, as General Thomas well knew, until relieved or directed to do otherwise. If only the duty had been assigned to some other officer, it might be that not hearing anything from the main body, he would send out a reconnoitering party. Not so with General Stockton. That general would stay put and only a direct order or an overpowering force of the enemy would move him.