"How are you going?" asked the boys. "You haven't any horses."
"We are going to get some of their horses," said the officer. "They have taken ours—now they must furnish us with others."
It was about time for the boys to start for home. The General took each of them aside, and talked for a long time. He was speaking to Willy, on the edge of the clearing, when there was a crack of a twig in the pines. In a second he had laid the boy on his back in the soft grass and whipped out a pistol. Then, with a low, quick call to Hugh, he sprang swiftly into the pines toward the sound.
"Crawl down into the ravine, boys," called Hugh, following his companion. The boys rolled down over the bank like little ground-hogs; but in a second they heard a familiar drawling voice call out in a subdued tone:
"Hold on, Cunnel! it's nobody but me; don't you know me?" And, in a moment, they heard the General's astonished and somewhat stern reply:
"Mills, what are you doing here? Who's with you? What do you want?"
"Well," said the new-comer, slowly, "I 'lowed I'd come to see if I could be o' any use to you. I heard the Yankees had run you 'way from Oakland last night, and was sort o' huntin' for you. Fact is, they's been up my way, and I sort o' 'lowed I'd come an' see ef I could help you git back to camp."
"Where have you been all this time? I wonder you are not ashamed to look me in the face!"
The General's voice was still stern. He had turned around and walked back to the cleared space.
The deserter scratched his head in perplexity.