The Littlest Rebel Part 21

"Jennings! Hewlett! Brown! Hammond! Burt! 'Bout face. Forward!" Almost before the words were out of his mouth Harris and his men were riding madly down the road in a chase, which the Lieutenant suspected, meant something more to his colonel, than merely the recovery of a safe-conduct for a Confederate officer and a little girl.

Morrison turned to Trooper O'Connell and jerked his thumb towards the road.

"Report at my quarters this evening--at nine," he said curtly. And the young Irishman, thankful to be well out of the mess, quickly clambered over the wall and disappeared though not without a soft voiced farewell from Virgie.

"Good-by, Mr. Knapsack Man," called the child. "Thank you for the biscuits."

Then Cary came forward and gripped the other's hand.

"Colonel," he said earnestly, with full appreciation of what was pa.s.sing through Morrison's mind, "I hope no trouble will come of this. If I had only known the vindictiveness of this man--"

He was interrupted by a genially objecting hand and a laugh which Morrison was somehow able to make lighthearted.

"Oh, that will be all right. Harris will get him--never fear."

"And so," he said, addressing Miss Virginia, "that bad man took your pa.s.s?"

"Yes, sir. He did," Virgie answered, and caught his hand in hers. "He ran right away with it--mean old thing."

"Well, then--we'll have to write you out another one. A nice, clean, white one this time. Come on, little sweetheart. We'll do it together,"

and he took out a note book and pencil.

"I say, Morrison," Cary murmured, glancing apprehensively at the troopers idling in the road and very plainly interested in what the small group were doing, "do you really think you'd better--on your own account?"

Again Morrison's hand was raised in polite objection. He had taken a sporting chance when he wrote the pa.s.s which had been stolen but because he had probably lost was no reason why he shouldn't play the game out bravely to the end. So he only smiled at Virgie, who came and sat beside him, and began to write the few short sentences of his second safe-conduct. But while he wrote he was talking in low tones which the troopers in the road could not hear.

"There's a line of your pickets about three miles up the road, Cary,"

said he. "If I loaned you a horse, do you think Virgie could ride behind you?"

"_Me?_" pouted Virgie. "Why, Daddy says that when I was bornded, I came ridin' in on a stork."

Morrison burst out laughing and dropped his hand down on the small paw resting on his knee.

"Then, by St. George and the Dragon we'll send you home to Jefferson Davis on a snorting Pegasus!"

Again Cary spoke to him in warning tones, which at the same time thanked him unendingly for the kindly thought.

"You needn't trouble about the mount. Why, man," he said huskily, "you're in trouble enough, as it is! And if our lines are as close as you say they are--"

Once more the Union officer checked him.

"It isn't any trouble. Only--you'll have to be careful of your approach, even to your own lines. Those gray devils in the rifle pits up there have formed the habit of shooting _first_ and asking questions _afterwards_. There you are," and he tore the leaf from his note book and handed it up with a faint smile.

The Southerner took it with a reluctant hand.

"I--I wish I could thank you--Morrison," he said in tones that shook with feeling, "but you see I--I--"

"Then please don't try. Because if you do I'll--I'll have to hold Virgie as a prisoner of war.

"Well, young one," he said to the small Miss Cary with a laugh, "did you really get something to eat?"

"Yes, sir. That is--we _almost_ did."

"_Almost?_" he echoed.

"Yes, sir," came the plaintive answer. "Eve'y time we start to eat--somethin' _always_ happens!"

"Well, well, that _is_ hard luck," he said with a gentle squeeze of her frail body. "But I'll bet you it won't happen this time; not if a whole regiment tries to stop it."

"Come on," he suggested as he sprang to his feet and began picking up dry twigs. "You can start in and munch on those heavenly biscuits while this terrible Yankee builds the fire." Cary made a move as if to help; but Morrison checked him.

"Oh, no, Cary, just you keep on sitting still. This is no work for you.

You're tired out.

"Here, Virgie, I know you want to get me some water from the spring.

Please pick out the cleanest pieces of water you can and put them carefully in the coffee pot. All right. There you are. _'Tention!_ Carr-ee coffee pot! Right wheel! _March!_"

With a carefree laugh he turned away to light the little heap of twigs he had placed between two flat stones. "It's mighty considerate of my boys to leave us all these things. We'll call it the raid of Black Gum Spring.

"And here comes the little lady with the coffee pot filled just right.

Now watch me pour in the good old coffee--_real_ coffee, Virgie dear--not made from aco'ns." He settled the pot on the fire and sat back with a grin. "Oh, oh! Don't watch it," he cried, in well feigned alarm as Virgie, unwilling to believe the sight, stooped over to feast her eyes on the rich brown powder sinking into the black gulf of the pot.

"If you do that it will never, _never_ boil!"

"All right," the child agreed pathetically, and she sank wearily down against her father's knee. "I'll just pray for it to hurry up."

The two men exchanged quiet smiles and Cary murmured something in his daughter's ear.

"Oh, no, I won't," she answered, and then looked up at Morrison with a roguish light in her dark eyes. "He's only afraid I'll pray so terribly hard that the old coffee pot will boil over an' put out the fire."

Morrison, chuckling, now began to drag something out of a rear pocket.

Presently, he uncorked it and held it up--a _flask_!

"Here, Cary," he said, holding out a cup. "Join me, won't you? Of course, you understand--in case a snake should bite us."

"Colonel Morrison," responded the Southerner, "you are certainly a man of ideas."

He waited for his foe to fill his own cup, then raised his in a toast:

"I drink to the health, sir, of you and yours. Here's hoping that some day I may take _you_ prisoner!"

At the quizzical look of surprise in the other's face Cary's voice almost broke.

"I mean, sir, it's the only way I could ever hope to show you how much I appreciate--"

He stopped and covered his face with his hands, not a little to his daughter's alarm.

"Come, come, old chap," the Northerner said bluffly, tapping him on the shoulder. "Brace up. It's the fortunes of war, you know. One side or the other is bound to win. Perhaps--who knows--it may be _your_ turn to-morrow. Well, sir--here goes. May it soon be over--in the way that's best and wisest for us all.

"Now, Virgie," he went on, when the toast had been drunk, "while I wash these cups suppose you go on another voyage of discovery through the magic knapsack for some sugar for the coffee."