Chasing an Iron Horse Part 5

answered the soldier. "Can either of you fellows talk like a darky?"

"Not I," said Macgreggor. Had he been asked if he could speak Hebrew, he would not have been more surprised.

"Can you, George?" asked Watson, as he shut the door.

"I might," whispered George. "When I was up in Cincinnati we boys used----"

"Never mind what you boys did--only do as I tell you, and if you can give a good imitation you may save us from arrest, and worse!"

The hors.e.m.e.n now seemed to be within a few yards of the cabin. They had evidently halted for consultation. Meanwhile Watson was whispering some instructions to George. After he had finished he leaned against the door with his whole weight, and indicated to Macgreggor that he was to do the same thing. The latter obeyed in silence.

The hors.e.m.e.n without made a great deal of clatter. If they were pursuing the fugitives they did not seem to think secrecy of movement very necessary. "Whose cabin is this?" demanded one of them.

"It did belong to old Sam Curtis, but he's moved away, down to Alabama,"

some one answered.

"Some darky may live in it now, eh?" said the first voice.

"Perhaps it's empty, and these tarnation spies are in it," was the rejoinder in a lower tone.

The men moved their horses closer to the house, which they quickly surrounded. No chance now for any one to escape; it seemed as if the three men in the cabin must inevitably be caught like rats in a trap. Yet they waited courageously, breathlessly. It was a tense moment. Another minute would decide their fate. Would they remain free men, or would they fall into the hands of their pursuers, with all the consequences that such a capture implied?

Already one of the Vigilants, evidently the leader, had dismounted.

Approaching the door of the cabin, he gave it a push as if he expected it would open at once. But there was no yielding; Watson and Macgreggor were still leaning firmly against the other side.

The leader began to knock on the door with a revolver. "Here, here," he shouted; "if there's any one in this cabin, come out--or we'll have you out!"

At first there was no response, save a bark from Waggie. The leader rattled savagely at the door. "Let's break in," he cried to his companions, "and see if the place has any one in it!"

The Vigilants were about to follow the example of their leader, and dismount when there came a wheedling voice--apparently the voice of a negress--from within the cabin.

"What you gemmen want dis time o' night wid poor Aunty Dinah?"

"A n.i.g.g.e.r's living here," muttered the leader, in surprise.

"What for you gwyne to disturb an ole n.i.g.g.ah at dis hour?" asked the voice from within.

"It's all right, aunty," called out the leader. "We only want some information. Come to the door."

"In one minute I be with you," was the answer. "I'se a nursin' my old man here--he done gone and took the smallpox--and----"

The smallpox! Had the voice announced that a million Union troops were descending upon the party the consternation would not have been half as great. The smallpox! At the mention of that dreaded name, and at the thought that they were so close to contagion, the Vigilants, with one accord, put spurs into their horses and rushed madly away. The leader, dropping his revolver in his excitement, and not even stopping to pick it up, leaped upon his horse and joined in the inglorious retreat. On, on, dashed the men until they reached the town of Jasper, tired and provoked.

Like many other men, North or South, they were brave enough when it came to gunpowder, but were quickly vanquished at the idea of pestilential disease.

"Bah!" cried the leader, as they all reined up in front of the village tavern, which now looked dark and uninviting; "those three spies, if spies they are, can go to Guinea for all I care. I shall hunt them no more."

There was a general murmur of a.s.sent to this fervent remark. One of the Vigilants said, in an injured tone: "I wish Jake Hare was at the bottom of the ocean!"

In explanation of which charitable sentiment it may be explained that Farmer Hare, on the departure of Watson, Macgreggor and George Knight, had run all the way to Jasper. Here he told the Vigilants that the three men had returned in the boat (which he had previously declared they had taken) and landed on the bank of the river. They could be easily caught, he said.

He carefully suppressed any account of the way in which he had been outwitted by Watson. The fact was that Hare made up his mind, logically enough, that the fugitives would keep along the Tennessee until morning came, and as he had seen the direction they had taken he determined to set the Vigilants on their track. His scheme, as we have seen, was nearly crowned with success.

"A miss is as good as a mile," laughed Watson, as he stood with his two companions in the pitch black interior of the cabin, listening to the last faint sounds of the retreating Vigilants.

"There's nothing like smallpox, eh?" said George.

"Or nothing like a boy who can imitate a darky's voice," put in Macgreggor. "Where did you learn the art, George?"

"We boys in Cincinnati had a minstrel company of our own," the boy explained, "and I used to play negro parts."

"I'll never call the minstrels stupid again," said Watson. "They have been instrumental in saving our lives."

"Rather say it was your own brains that did it," interposed George.

So they talked until daybreak, for they found it impossible to sleep.

Meanwhile the weather had changed. When the sun came peeping over the horizon, between tearful clouds, as if afraid that it was almost too damp for him to be out, the trio were pus.h.i.+ng cautiously along the bank of the Tennessee, in the direction of Chattanooga.

"I don't know who brought the Vigilants out for us the second time, unless it was our dear friend Hare, and I don't know whether they will give us another chase this morning," said Watson, as they were laboriously ascending one of the mountain spurs which led down to the river sh.o.r.e, "but we must go steadily on, and trust to luck. To delay would be fatal.

This is Friday--and we must be in Marietta by this evening."

On they trudged, over rocks and paths that would have taxed the ability of a nimble-footed chamois, as they wondered how the rest of their friends were faring, and where might be the intrepid Andrews. Sometimes Waggie scampered joyously on; sometimes he reposed in his master's overcoat. The clouds had now cleared away; the sun was s.h.i.+ning serenely over the swollen and boisterous waters of the crooked Tennessee. Nature was once more preparing to smile.

"I'm getting frightfully hungry," cried George, about noon-time. "I wouldn't mind a bit of breakfast."

"There's where we may get some," said Macgreggor. He pointed to an old-fas.h.i.+oned colonial house of brick, with a white portico, which they could see in the centre of a large open tract about a quarter of a mile back of the river. The smoke was curling peacefully from one of the two great chimneys, as if offering a mute invitation to a stranger to enter the house and partake of what was being cooked within. In a field in front of the mansion cattle were grazing, and the jingle of their bells sounded sweetly in the distance. No one would dream, to look at such an attractive picture, that the grim Spectre of War stalked in the land.

"Shall we go up to the house, and ask for something?" suggested Macgreggor, who was blessed with a healthy appet.i.te.

Watson looked a little doubtful. "There's no use in our showing ourselves any more than is necessary," he said. "Rather than risk our necks, we had better go on empty stomachs till we reach Chattanooga."

But such a look of disappointment crept over the faces of George and Macgreggor, and even seemed to be reflected in the s.h.a.ggy countenance of Waggie, that Watson relented.

"After all," he said, "there's no reason why there should be any more danger here than in Chattanooga or Marietta. Let's make a break for the house, and ask for a meal."

Hardly had he spoken before they were all three hurrying towards the mansion. When at last they stood under the portico, George seized the quaint bra.s.s knocker of the front door, and gave it a brisk rap. After some delay a very fat negress opened the door, and eyed the strangers rather suspiciously. Their tramp over the country had not improved their appearance, and her supercilious, inquisitive look was not strange, under the circ.u.mstances.

"What you folks want?" she asked, putting her big arms akimbo in an uncompromising att.i.tude. Watson was about to reply when an attractive voice, with the soft accent so characteristic of the Southerners, called: "What is it, Ethiopia? Any one to see me?"

The next instant a kindly-faced gentlewoman of about fifty stood in the doorway.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked pleasantly.

Macgreggor proceeded to tell the customary story about their being on their way from Kentucky to join the Confederate army further south. His heart smote him as he did so, for she was so gentle and sympathetic in her manner that he loathed to practice any deception, however necessary; but there was no help for it. So he ended by asking for something to eat.

"Come in," said the mistress of the mansion, for such she proved to be, "and take any poor hospitality I can offer you. My husband, Mr. Page, and both my children are away, fighting under General Lee, and I am only too glad to do anything I can for others who are helping the great cause." She smiled sweetly at George, and patted his dog. The boy regarded her almost sheepishly; he, too, hated the idea of imposing on so cordial a hostess.

Mrs. Page led the party into a great colonial hallway, embellished with family portraits. "By-the-way," she added, "there is a Confederate officer in the house now--Major Lightfoot, of the --th Virginia Regiment. He reached here this morning from Richmond and goes to Chattanooga this afternoon on a special mission."