With Sully into the Sioux Land Part 24

"No, sir," Wallace answered. "We don't know anything about them. We were coming down the Missouri on a barge, straight from Dakota, when we were taken."

"Well, Captain," remarked the General, leaning back in his chair and glancing at Yeager. "I don't see that your prisoners are of much value."

"Mebbe not," replied Yeager, somewhat crest-fallen. "But you'd better see the feller that told me about 'em. Mebbe he knows somethin' more."

General Clark sent out the corporal and in a moment the latter returned, leading Jim forcibly by the arm. The short, broad-shouldered guerilla followed them. The deck hand was trembling visibly and his eyes were wild but he was evidently striving to maintain his composure.

"What do you know about these prisoners?" demanded General Clark.

"I don't know nothin', General," answered Jim, his voice shaking. "Only they're Yanks, an' I thought they ought to be turned over. I didn't expect,--" he stopped short.

"Didn't expect what?"

"I--I didn't expect they'd be examined none, ner that I'd be dragged into it. I thought they'd--they'd be shot."

"In the regular Confederate service we do not shoot prisoners of war,"

replied the General, turning a coldly significant glance upon Yeager.

"And why," he continued, addressing Jim, "didn't you want to be dragged into it, as you say?"

The deck hand's eyes wavered and he made no reply.

"What are you so alarmed about?" persisted the General, leaning forward and watching him suspiciously.

Al cleared his throat.

"Pardon me, General Clark," said he, "but I believe you will find on inquiry that this man is a deserter from your service."

Jim started as if he had been shot.

"It ain't so!" he cried, wildly. "I ain't never been in the Confederate army." He made an involuntary step toward the door, but his guard pulled him back firmly.

"Why do you think that?" asked General Clark of Al.

"He was a deck hand on the boat I ascended the Missouri on," replied Al, "and I had trouble with him. That's doubtless why he hoped to have me shot. I judge that he was in the Confederate service only by threats and boasts that he made to me, and he was probably in an Arkansas regiment."

"An Arkansas regiment?" the General asked. "We have a whole division of Arkansas troops with us,--f.a.gan's."

A curious, gurgling gasp came from Jim's throat. His face was chalky.

"I never heerd o' f.a.gan," he sputtered. "Ner I ain't been in Arkansaw in all my life."

"You are not convicted," General Clark said, calmly. "But the matter is worth investigating."

He called the sergeant of the headquarters guard and directed him to have Jim placed in close custody, and the deck hand was led away, reeling and apparently almost fainting. Al never saw him again; and though by chance he heard long afterward that Jim had, in fact, been in an Arkansas regiment, he could never ascertain whether the young fellow paid the penalty of death for his violation of his oath of enlistment.

When Jim had been led away, the General turned to Al and asked,

"You wear no uniform. Why not?"

"I am not enlisted in the army, sir. I am too young."

"Ah! You would not be in our service," the General returned, with a smile. "But you are a Union sympathizer?"

"Yes, sir, I am," replied Al, firmly.

"Well, you appear to be a pretty bright boy," the General observed, shrewdly. "I think it will be as well not to have you at large for a few days. Corporal, lock these young men in that brick storehouse a block below here, on the left side of the street. Mount a guard, give them supper, and keep them securely till further orders."

As they were being marched out, they pa.s.sed the short guerilla who had championed them in the morning. He was lounging by the doorstep. Al motioned to him and he caught step with them.

"We are very grateful to you for taking our part down there where we were captured," said he. "We'd have been killed if it hadn't been for you."

"Maybe," said the other, somewhat embarra.s.sed. "But I didn't like the way you were taken."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, havin' that dough-faced s.h.i.+pmate o' yours come in to give yeh up,--pervidin' we'd shoot yeh!"

"It was a low-down trick," said Wallace.

"I should say it was! I'm glad you tipped off the General to the kind of a pup he is."

"Why are you so set against him?" asked Al.

"Aw, I just don't like his looks," returned the bushwhacker. "Yeh kin see he's yellow, an' I sized him up fer a deserter when he got in such a sweat to pull out."

"What's your name?" asked Al, as the man stopped, evidently not intending to go as far as their prison with them.

The bushwhacker looked at him suspiciously.

"You needn't be afraid of me," Al insisted. "Perhaps we can do you a good turn sometime."

For a moment longer the other hesitated, then answered,

"My name's Bill Cotton," and, turning, he walked away.

The boys were soon securely locked in their prison with a sentry before the door. It was a small brick building near the river bank, and all its windows were boarded up with heavy planks except a small square one facing the river, the sill of which was about six feet above the floor.

They had been confined but a few moments when the corporal returned, bringing a quant.i.ty of hardtack, a chunk of bacon, a pail of drinking water, two blankets and a small box of ointment.

"There," said he, as he handed the various articles to the boys, "fill yerselves up an' rub some o' this yere grease stuff on yer wrists. It ain't the best; lard an' marigold juice is the best, but I ain't got none, so I jest bought this in a store. I reckon it'll help some."

The boys thanked him warmly.

"That's all right," he replied. "I hate to see prisoners abused. I found out how it felt myself, once. This is a kind of a nasty hole to put you in but you'll likely be let out o' here an' paroled in the mornin', when we start fer Glasgow."

"Are you going to Glasgow?" asked Al, suddenly interested.

"You bet we are," confided the corporal, sociably, "an' some o' Joe Shelby's boys with us; got orders this evenin'. There's quite a bunch o'

your Yank friends up there, an' a big grist o' muskets, too, an' we want the whole lot." He smiled genially at the boys in antic.i.p.ation.