The Courier Of The Ozarks Part 18

Lamar chuckled. "Say, boy, do you know I was in that crowd?"

"No," answered Lawrence, more astonished than ever.

"Well, I was. But here is your horse and everything taken from you. You are at liberty to take them and ride away. Nay, more, I will send an escort with you to protect you until you are near the lines of your friends."

Lawrence's lips trembled and his voice was husky as he answered, "Captain, I don't know why you have granted me such clemency, but I am thankful from the bottom of my heart. Be a.s.sured if the time ever comes when I can return you the same mercy you have shown me it will be done."

"We are at quits now," said Lamar. "You saved my life once."

"I?" cried Lawrence. "I never remember having seen you before."

"You have. About a year ago I belonged to a body of partisans commanded by Captain Proctor. A fellow by name of Semans peached on us. We paid him off by burning his buildings and shooting him. Just as we finished the job a body of cavalry charged down and drove us off. I was left on the field desperately wounded. Some of the men were about to shoot me as I lay there helpless, but the captain of the cavalry, a mere boy, sprang in, with his sword, beat down the guns, and swore that no wounded man, no matter what he had done, should be ruthlessly murdered while he was commanding that company. Captain, you are that boy; I am that wounded man."

"Ah, I remember," murmured Lawrence.

"That is not all," continued Lamar. "You tenderly cared for me, had me taken to a near-by house, where I stayed until I recovered. Captain, no thanks. As I have said, we are quits now. If we meet again it will be on even terms. One promise you must make me. You must not lead the Federals to this place for the next twenty-four hours. After that I do not care."

"The promise is freely given," answered Lawrence.

The two men, so strangely met, shook hands, and Lawrence mounted his horse and, accompanied by two of the guerrillas, rode away.

On the way they met several rough-looking men who looked at Lawrence with malevolent eyes, but a few whispered words from his guards and they were allowed to pa.s.s on. Lawrence now saw why Captain Lamar had sent a guard with him.

After they had traveled several miles Lawrence saw a line of blue galloping towards him.

"Go, I will see you are not followed," he said to his guards. They raised their hands in salute, turned, and putting spurs to their horses, were soon out of sight.

In a moment more Lawrence was in the arms of Dan Sherman, who was hugging him, laughing and crying at the same time.

"I'll never leave you again," he cried.

"It is fortunate that you did," replied Lawrence, "for if you had been with me there would be no Dan Sherman now."

The officer in command of the company now bustled up. "Did I not see two men with you, Captain?" he asked. "They looked to me very much like guerrillas."

"They were friends," answered Lawrence. "Neither can I guide you to the haunts of those who held me prisoner. Tomorrow you are at liberty to find them if you can. Turn back with me to Platte City and I will tell you my story."

When they heard the story they marvelled and swore they had never heard of any grat.i.tude in a guerrilla's heart before.[8]

[Footnote 8: Several months after this Lamar was captured, not by Lawrence, but by an officer who knew the story. He was paroled and lived to become a good citizen after the war.]

CHAPTER X

THE GUERRILLA'S BRIDE

"How did you come to be with the soldiers I met?" asked Lawrence of Dan.

The two were now in Leavenworth, waiting for a boat to take them down the river.

"It was this way," answered Dan. "When those rascally cavalrymen deserted you and rode back to Platte City, word was sent post-haste here, asking for a company to go to the aid of Captain Leeper, and help chastise the band which had murdered you, and, if possible, to procure your body. I was nearly wild when I heard you had been killed, and nothing could have prevented me from accompanying the company sent to Captain Leeper. I tell you, charges ought to be preferred against those four men who so basely deserted you. They should be court-martialed for cowardice and shot."

"Not so fast, Dan," replied Lawrence. "Those men heard the shots, looked back and saw, as they supposed, the Corporal and myself both killed.

They did not know how many guerrillas were in the brush, and they did the best and about the only thing they could do--get to Platte City as soon as possible, and give the alarm."

"They should have known there were but two from the report of the guns,"

grumbled Dan. "I tell you it was a cowardly trick. Do you think I would have left you, if I had been one of the four?"

"No, Dan," said Lawrence, laying his hand on his shoulder, affectionately. "You would have charged back there if there had been fifty guerrillas, instead of two; but all men are not dear old Dan."

There was a suspicious moisture in Dan's eyes, but he only said: "Pshaw!

Any fellow with any grit would have done it."

A boat coming along, they took pa.s.sage for Lexington, the boat making quite a long stop at Kansas City. They found that all fear that the enemy might be able to capture the towns along the Missouri had subsided. Everywhere the guerrillas had been beaten, and they were fleeing south by the hundreds to hide in the Ozarks or among the mountains of northern Arkansas. Still, numerous small bands remained in hiding. Within a radius of a hundred miles, taking Lexington as a center, then were a score of these bands operating, but there were two of them which were especially daring and troublesome.

One of these bands was led by the notorious Quantrell, and the other by Jerry Alcorn, known as Red Jerry.

Jerry, the year before, had fled from St. Louis, being detected in a plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate Lawrence Middleton and Guilford Craig. He had joined Price's army, but soon deserted to become leader of a band of guerrillas. Lawrence, with his scouts, had met this band the year before, and given it a crus.h.i.+ng defeat. As has also been seen, it was Jerry and his men that chased Lawrence and Dan as they were going in search of Colonel Warner at Lone Jack.

When Lawrence reached Lexington, he received dispatches from General Schofield, saying he would not be able to go to Springfield to take command of the army quite as soon as he had expected, and that Lawrence should report to him at St. Louis; but before he reported he was to see that all the guerrilla bands around Lexington were dispersed.

Lawrence found that a force was being organized in Lexington to try to surprise and capture Red Jerry and his entire band. He determined to accompany it. But when he found the officer who was to command the expedition was a Colonel Jennison, he hesitated. He had but little use for that officer. He commanded one of those regiments known as jay-hawkers. The men composing the regiment were fighters, but in their tactics differed little from the guerrillas. With them it was "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

Lawrence talked it over with Dan, and they were so anxious that Red Jerry be brought to justice for his many crimes that he decided to overcome his repugnance to the Colonel, and go, taking the place of the Major of the regiment, who was sick.

Jerry was reported as hanging around the plantation of a Mr. Floyd Templeton, a very respected old gentleman, but a bitter Southern partisan. Mr. Templeton had two children--a son who was with Price, and a daughter who oversaw the household, the mother being dead.

This daughter, Agnes by name, was at this time about twenty, and was a strikingly beautiful girl. Her l.u.s.trous hair, dark as midnight, crowned a well-shaped head, which she carried as proudly as a queen. Her dark eyes, lovely in repose, could with a languis.h.i.+ng glance cause the heart of the most prosaic of men to beat more rapidly; but in their depth was a hidden fire which would blaze forth when aroused, and show the tempestuous soul which dwelt within. She was above medium height, and her body was as lithe and supple as a panther's.

In vain had her hand been sought by the beaux for twenty miles around.

When the war came, she told them no one need woo her until her beloved Missouri was free of the Yankee foe, and he who did win her must be a soldier, brave and true.

Some months before, Jerry's gang had been attacked and scattered, and Jerry, his horse being killed, fled on foot. In his flight he came to the Templeton house, his pursuers close behind.

He implored Agnes to save him, and this she did by secreting him in a hidden closet behind the huge chimney. To the Federal soldiers in pursuit she swore the guerrilla chieftain had pa.s.sed by without stopping. A careful search of the house revealing nothing, the soldiers were forced to believe she told the truth.

Jerry was not only grateful to his fair preserver, but fell violently in love with her. The rough guerrilla soldier was not the soldier of the dreams of the proud, aristocratic girl. Concealing her repugnance to his advances, she gently but firmly refused him, telling him her duty was to her aged father. Jerry was so persistent in his advances that she finally told him he must never speak of the subject again, or he would be refused the house.

More than once did Jerry conceive the scheme of carrying her off by force and marrying her against her will; but he became aware that the girl possessed as fierce a spirit as his own, and if need were she would not hesitate to plunge a dagger in his heart.

With the fires of unrequited love burning in his heart, he had to cease his advances; but, like the silly moths that flutter around a candle, he made every excuse to call at the Templeton residence. The girl warned him by saying that by his course he was bringing not only danger on himself, but on her father as well.

Jerry knew this, and the dastardly thought came to him that if the Federals did make way with her father, Agnes, in her loneliness, might come to him. It was a thought worthy of his black nature, but that he madly loved the girl, there was no doubt.

The expedition against Jerry was well planned, but he got wind of it, and scattered his force.