A Rebellion in Dixie, Harry Castlemon [mobi ebook reader .txt] 📗

bridge were too strong to be carried by the small force they had at their command, for the answering volleys that came 235across the creek—they came thick and fast, too—showed them that the insurgents of Jones county had taken ample precautions. It demonstrated another point to their satisfaction: it showed them that they knew how to fight.

“They are shooting at us!” cried Cale, who straightway dove into the bushes.

Dan stood there in the road and didn’t know what to do. While he was considering the matter the firing ceased, and then all was still. He stood there for a long time, half an hour, it seemed to him, and then he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs coming from the direction of the bridge, and in a few minutes the Confederates rode up.

“Did you hit any of them?” inquired Dan.

“We hit one that we know of, and that was the sentry,” said the captain. “We filled him so full of holes that he never will hold that position again. Now we will go on and report that they have got sentries at the bridge. I’ll look into all the houses as I go by, and if that rebel fellow is about I’ll have him, sure.”

“Well, now, look here,” said Dan, who 236began to think now that there was some truth in what his brother told him. “What be I going to do?”

“You? Oh, yes. We shall want you to stay here, so as to be on hand, you know, the next time we come out after the Yanks. You will be right here when we want you?”

“No. I live all of twelve miles from here, and how will I know when you are coming? Couldn’t you take me on to Mobile with you?”

“Why, of what use would you be there?” answered the captain, speaking before he thought. “Why—you see,” he added, on receiving a nudge from his lieutenant, “your company isn’t ready for you to command it.”

“Couldn’t you take me on your staff?”

“Well, you see, I don’t have a staff,” said the leader, struggling hard to keep from laughing outright. “I’ll speak to the colonel about you as soon as I get back. Good-bye. Forward!”

“Of all things I ever heard of this is the beat,” thought Dan, as he stood there and watched the men out of sight. “If I am a 237captain, I do not see what’s the reason my company isn’t ready for me to command it. I guess I have made a botch of this business. Well, Cale,” he added, aloud, “let’s catch up and go home. And Cale, I won’t say anything to the old man about this.”

“I reckon I wouldn’t if I was in your place,” said Cale.

“No; but I will depend upon you to do it for me,” continued Dan, coaxingly. “You can repeat what the captain said to us without mentioning any names, can’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“And all the while I will listen and be as earnest as you for disbelieving it,” said Dan. “In that way we will get at the truth of the matter. But I do say that I think that that captain was up to mighty mean business. I reckon he’ll find somebody else that he wants to promote in the same way, and I wish I could be there to whisper a word or two in his ear.”

Cale followed along behind his brother as he bent his steps toward home, swam the creek, and just at daylight arrived within 238sight of his dilapidated shelter. His father was up, and a smoke lazily ascended from the chimney.

“Well, boys, what luck?” he exclaimed, when his eyes fell upon the two weary tramps coming toward him. “Did you see any rebels?”

Dan borrowed his father’s plug of nigger-twist, and Cale hunted up his pipe before either of them replied. Dan cut off a generous chew, and then seated himself on the doorstep.

“You have been gone a long time,” continued Mr. Newman, “and I think you must have seen something. Did you capture any of the head men of the county?”

“No,” replied Dan. “We saw some Confederates, but they wouldn’t go after them.”

“Why, how was that?”

Dan began and told his story just as it happened, and the old man became so interested that he allowed his pipe to go out. He told about his meeting with the Confederates, described the conversation they had with them, all except the promotion, told about the 239firing on the pickets, and that they went back to report that they had found sentries at the bridge.

“And didn’t they charge across the bridge and capture those pickets?” exclaimed Mr. Newman, in disgust.

“They didn’t make nary charge that we heard of,” replied Dan. “They said they would go back and report it.”

“Well, if that ain’t a pretty way to do business I don’t want a cent. They ought to have a couple of thousand men behind them; then they could have captured the sentries, and come on up here and gobbled these men.”

It was now Cale’s turn to try his hand.

“Father,” said he, “has a captain any right to promote a man to the same rank as himself?”

“No,” said his father. “What made you ask that question?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about it.”

“The captain has a right to watch his men in action, and if he sees them doing any brave act he reports it to the colonel,” said Mr. 240Newman. “But he has no authority to promote them himself.”

The boys were satisfied. Cale stretched himself out upon his shake-down and dropped off into a dreamless slumber, while Dan threw out his tobacco, filled a pipe with nigger-twist, and sat down and thought about it. There was one thing he did not neglect to do. While he was lost in dreaming of the glory that might have been his if his promotion had been according to law, he did not forget to vow vengeance upon the captain who had presumed to play upon his credulity in that outrageous way.

“I know just how he looks,” soliloquized Dan, “and if it ever comes in my way to do him a mean act he’ll see how quick I’ll take him up. But that promotion is what gets me. How fine that old fellow looked in his high-topped boots, slouch hat, and gloves that came up to his elbows! Never mind. I’ll see the day when I will be better off than any of them.”

Meanwhile there was one soldier in the captain’s ranks who would have given everything 241he possessed to have been able to have pulled out his revolver and shot Dan down when he talked about “that rebel fellow” who had gone off with a couple of Yanks. He well knew what had brought him out there. He was Mr. Dawson, and the boy who had escaped at the time the wagon-train was captured was his son. The boy had lived up to his agreement, and was now paving the way to take his mother and younger brothers inside the Federal lines in Jones county.

We have said that Mr. Dawson came out and spoke to the two men who had come into the yard with him, and they went on, while Mr. Dawson himself came toward the corn-crib, behind which he knew his boy was concealed. He was after a saddle, for his own, together with his horse and weapons, had been taken by the Jones county men when they captured the train. He had seen his boy go off into the bushes and drew a long breath of relief, for he knew that his troubles were ended. He obtained the saddle, placed it on the old clay-bank which had been given to him to replace the horse he had lost, and rode 242on and overtook the line just after they had made a capture of Cale and Dan Newman. He was in something of a scrape, because if either of the boys saw or recognized him they might have mistrusted something. So he sat there on his mule, and heard what Dan had to say about that “rebel fellow,” but no one thought of connecting him with it. They supposed that young Dawson was somewhere in Mobile, and that they would find him there when they got back.

The captain went into all the houses as he went along, but without finding any preparations for hurried departure. The women came to the doors as fast as they could find some clothing to put on, obediently struck a light in response to the captain’s request, and then he departed with a slight apology for his intrusion. One garrulous old woman followed him to the door and inquired:

“What did you-uns think you wanted to find, anyway?”

“I just wanted to see if any of your men folks had been at home packing up goods to take them into the Yankee lines,” said the captain.

243“Sho! My men folks been in the Conf’drit army before you was born. They ain’t seed nuthing to make ’em desert yit.”

Finally they reached the house where Mr. Dawson lived, and he noticed one thing that attracted his attention at once. There was but a single dog to welcome him, and he was tied up back of the house. All the others had gone off somewhere. As the lieutenant reined his horse up close to the pin the captain turned about and said:

“Why, this is the place where one of you men live, isn’t it? You came in here after a saddle, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” replied a voice from somewhere in the line.

“Your boy is in the service, too. You don’t suppose that he has deserted, do you?”

“Well, he went off into the woods, and I haven’t seen him since. You can go in and see for yourself, sir.”

“Seeing is believing. It will not take but a minute.”

The captain dismounted from his horse and 244pounded loudly upon the closed door, but met with no response. Then he pushed open the door and entered the house. By the flickering light that was thrown out by the fire that was blazing on the hearth the lieutenant found a candle, and when he had struck a light a scene of the greatest confusion was presented. The bureau drawers were all thrown every which way, and when they made their way to the sleeping-room, not a vestige of clothing was there on the bed.

“Gee-whizz!” shouted the captain. “Here’s where one of those fellows has been. Arrest that man out there—the one riding the clay-bank mule.”

The men outside began riding about the house, but no such man could be found. They saw the place where the solitary hound had been confined, but he was gone, and the man on the clay-bank mule had disappeared.

“Don’t you find him anywhere?” shouted the captain, coming out of the door in great excitement.

“No, sir. He has skipped,” exclaimed one of the men.

245“He’s gone off this way,” shouted another. “I hear somebody going through the field.”

“Take after him, the last mother’s son of you!” commanded the captain. “And remember and don’t come back without him. I tell you I’ll get fits for this, going out on a scout and letting one of my men desert under my very eyes!”

In an instant the captain and all his men were in hot pursuit of the horseman whose hoof-beats could just be heard. The chase led through a wide cotton-field, with a high fence at the other end, but the horseman, whoever he was, had a long start and seemed determined to make the most of it. Toward the fence he held, the men scattering out so as to head him off when he got there, and finally the captain, who rode a splendid horse, got near enough to the object he was pursuing to see that it was a clay-bank mule.

“Halt!” he shouted. “We’ve got you, and you might as well give up. If you don’t we’ll leave you right here for the buzzards to eat. Halt, I say.”

Still there was no response, and the mule 246kept on as fast as ever. The captain began to get angry, and he drew his sabre, intending to cut the man down when he got within reach of him; but just then they came within reach of the fence, and the mule turned and ran alongside of it. That brought him within reach of the captain’s vision (it was so dark that they couldn’t see the man on the mule’s back), and the officer, after taking a look or two at the mule, drew up his horse.

“Gee-whiz!” he shouted, making use of his favorite expression; “we have been chasing that clay-bank mule, but where’s the man on her? The mule was going home but the man’s got off. Catch him, men, and then we’ll go back and hunt for somebody else who is hidden somewhere in the bushes.”

The captain was mortified in the extreme, and no doubt he was a little suspicious. At any rate, he was