“Well, p'r'aps you 'll find some in a day or two,” the captain answered; “there's some of these Union men round here that 've got horses we ought to have.”
Jack took the hint and indicated their willingness to help themselves to horses whenever they could find any. This was satisfactory to the captain, and he said that they might join him as soon as they were mounted, and it would n't be very hard to find him if they asked in the right quarters.
Then he gave them several names of men who could be relied upon, and told where they lived. They covered a distance of fifteen or twenty miles to the east and south, so that as soon as the youths had supplied themselves with horses they could find out the captain's rendezvous. “But don't trust this man,” said the captain, nodding in the direction of the house in front of which they stood. “He talks South to our fellows and North to the Yanks when they come around, and nobody knows where to put him exactly. He's trying to carry water on both shoulders, and 'll be likely to spill it if he don't look out sharp.” Then the captain mounted his horse, after handing the empty bottle to the farmer, and the troop of Southern recruits rode off. The farmer was evidently glad to see them going away, and also not at all sorry when the boys followed in the same direction. He had heard only a small part of the conversation between them, but evidently caught enough of it to divine its purport.
“It's getting rather exciting,” said Harry, as soon as they were alone. “Had n't we better go back to Rolla and tell what we've seen and heard, so as to put the colonel on the track of the captain who wants us to become horse-thieves?”
“I've been thinking the same thing,” said Jack; “but how will we work it?”
“That's the question,” Harry responded. “It won't do to turn round now, as we should be suspected by everybody who has seen us, and particularly by the man where we had dinner. I think he's a Union man, or neutral anyhow; but we 'll take the captain's advice, and not trust him.”
“I have it,” said Jack. “We're tired now, and will go into the woods and have a sleep. We're about fifteen miles from Rolla, and can get back there by morning. Soon as it's dark we can start back and go just as fast as we can, and by breakfast time to-morrow we 'll have a party of cavalry on the heels of the captain.”
This was agreed to, and at once the boys, in the parlance of the Southwest, “took to the woods.” They slept soundly till dark, and then took the back track for Rolla. Fortunately they met nobody save a man in a farm-wagon, and as they heard the sound of his wheels some time before he reached them they had abundant opportunity to conceal themselves by the roadside till he had passed.
Just at daylight they reached the pickets outside of Rolla, and were immediately taken before the colonel, who received them in his tent and heard their story. Then he sent for a lieutenant of cavalry, who was at once dispatched with twenty men to hunt for the captain and his band of horse-thieves. Jack and Harry offered to accompany them, but the captain declined, partly because they were in great need of rest, having traveled thirty miles in about twenty-six hours and been awake all night, and partly because they would be recognized by those who had seen them on the road, and by the captain and his men in case they should be encountered.
“But do us one favor,” said Jack, when he found that their desire to accompany the party would not be granted.