“Ahn—hahn.”
“What did you desert for?”
Darby looked at him leisurely.
“‘D you ever know a man as ‘lowed he’d deserted? I never did.” A faint smile flickered on his pale face.
He was taken to the camp before the commander, a dark, self-contained looking man with a piercing eye and a close mouth, and there closely questioned as to the roads, and he gave the same account he had already given. The negro guide was brought up and his information tallied with the new comer’s as far as he knew it, though he knew well only the road which they were on and which Darby said was stopped up. He knew, too, that a road such as Darby offered to take them by ran somewhere down that way and joined the road they were on a good distance below; but he thought it was a good deal longer way and they had to cross a fork of the river.
There was a short consultation between the commander and one or two other officers, and then the commander turned to Darby, and said:
“What you say about the road’s being obstructed this way is partly true; do you guarantee that the other road is clear?”
Darby paused and reflected.
“I’ll guide you,” he said, slowly.
“Do you guarantee that the bridge on the river is standing and that we can get across?”