Chasing an Iron Horse - Edward Robins

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be careful of one thing. If you meet me as we are traveling, don’t recognize me unless you are sure no one is watching us. At Marietta we will contrive to meet in the hotel near the railroad station, where I will tell you all that is to be done the next morning.”

      “We have no money for the journey,” interposed a young volunteer. “Uncle Sam doesn’t pay us privates very large salaries, you know, Mr. Andrews.”

      Andrews produced a large wallet from the inner pocket of his overcoat. It was fairly bulging with paper money.

      “I’ve seen to that,” he explained. “Here’s a whole wad of Confederate currency which will pay your expenses through the Southern lines.” And with that he began to deal out the bills to the men, who hastily stowed away the money in their own pockets.

      “Now, boys,” went on the leader, “I want you to divide yourselves into parties of three or four, so that you may travel in separate groups, and thus avoid the suspicion which might be aroused if you all went in a body. And remember! One party must have nothing to do with another.”

      Thereupon, in the gloomy woods, the future spies formed themselves, as their inclinations directed, into six parties or detachments, four containing three men each, and two containing four. Andrews was to proceed southward alone, without an escort. Poor George Knight and Waggie appeared to be left out in the cold. George was burning to join the expedition. Even the rain which suddenly began to fall could not quench his ardor.

      “Mr. Andrews,” he said, coming up close to the leader, and speaking in a whisper, “can’t I go to Marietta, too?”

      Andrews peered at the boy in admiring surprise. “By Jove,” he answered, “you’re not afraid of danger, even if you are little more than a child. It’s bad enough for grown men to risk their lives—and bad enough for me to drag them into such a position—without getting a plucky boy into the scrape also. No! Don’t ask me to do that.”

      “But I won’t be in any more danger in the South than I am here,” pleaded George. “If I stay here I may be shot in battle, while if I go to Marietta I——”

      “If you go to Marietta, and are found out, you may be hanged as a spy,” interrupted Andrews. “I’d rather see you shot than strung up with a rope.”

      “The Confederates would never hang me if I am little more than a child, as you call me,” urged the lad.

      Andrews was evidently impressed by George’s persistence, but he hastened to say: “Anyway, I have no authority to send you off on this chase. You are a member of General Mitchell’s military household, and he alone could give you the permission.”

      “Then promise me that if I get his permission you will let me go.”

      The spy hesitated. He could just discern the earnest, pleading expression in the upturned face of the boy, upon which the rain-drops were pouring almost unnoticed.

      “Well,” he said, at last, “I am going back to camp now, and I start out before daylight. If you can induce the General to let you accompany us before that time I’ll make no objection.”

      George gave a little exclamation of delight. “Come,” he said, snapping his fingers at Waggie, “let us see what we can do to talk the old General into it.”

      The rain was now coming down in torrents, while the sharp, almost deafening cracks of thunder sounded as if the whole artillery of the Union army were engaged in practice. Soon all the conspirators were hurrying back to camp. Andrews was the very last to leave the woods where he had divulged his plans.

      “Heaven forgive me,” he mused, half sadly, “if I am leading these boys into a death trap.” But as a sudden flash of lightning illuminated the wet landscape, as with the brightness of day, there came into the leader’s strong face a look of calm resolution. “It’s worth all the danger,” he added.

      An hour later George Knight came running into the tent which Andrews occupied in the camp on Duck River. The leader was enveloped in a woolen overcoat, and on his well-shaped head was a slouch hat of the kind generally worn by Southerners. By the dim, sickly light of the candle which sputtered on a camp stool it could be seen that he had been writing, for pen, ink and a sealed letter were spread out upon the top of a leathern army trunk.

      “Well,” cried Andrews, picking up the candle from its tin socket and flashing it in the radiant face of the boy. “Ah! No need to ask you! I see by your dancing eyes that you have wheedled old Mitchell into allowing you to do a foolish thing.”

      The smile on the lad’s face vanished. “Don’t you want me to go along with you?” he asked, in an injured tone.

      The leader replaced the candle in the socket and then took one of George’s hands between his own strong palms. “George,” he said cordially, “you’re a boy after my own heart, and I’d like nothing better than to have you for a companion; but it’s because I do like you that I’m sorry you are about to run such a risk—and that’s the truth. How did you contrive to persuade the General?”

      George seated himself on Andrews’ bed, and laughed. “It was hard work at first,” he explained, “but after he had refused me twice I said to him: ‘General, if you were a boy in my place, and had heard of this expedition, what would you do?’ ‘By all the stars,’ he said, ‘I would run away to it rather than miss it—and get shot afterwards as a deserter, I suppose.’ ‘Then don’t put me under the temptation of running away,’ said I. At this the General laughed. Then he said: ‘Well, tell Andrews you can go—and that I’ll never forgive him if he lets anything happen to you. After all, the Confederates would never hang a child like you.’ ”

      “So he too calls you a child!” laughed Andrews.

      “Of course I’m not a child,” cried George proudly, as he jumped from the bed and stood up very straight, to make himself look as tall as possible; “but the General may call me a six-weeks’ old baby if he only lets me go along with you.”

      “There is no time to waste,” announced Andrews. “In the third tent from mine, to the right, you will find Privates Macgreggor and Watson, of the Second Ohio Volunteers. They have just offered to go with us, and I have accepted them in addition to the rest. Go to them, ask them to get you a suit of plain clothes, put it on instead of your uniform, and stick to them closely from the moment you leave camp until you meet me, as I hope you will, at Marietta. And be particularly careful to have nothing about you which could in any way lead to your identification as a Union soldier in case you should be arrested and searched.”

      “Hurrah!” said George, half under his breath.

      “May we all be hurrahing this time next week,” returned Andrews. “Here, George, as you go out give this letter to the sentry outside, to be sent off to-morrow in the camp mail.” As he spoke he took the sealed note from the army trunk, and handed it to the boy. “It is written to the young woman I am engaged to marry,” he explained, “and if we all get out of this bridge-burning business with our heads on our shoulders you can come dance at my wedding, and be my best man.”

      “I’d dance at twenty weddings for you,” enthusiastically cried George, who was beginning to have a great admiration for his new friend.

      “You don’t want me to be married twenty times, do you, my boy?” protested Andrews, smiling.

      “I would do a great deal to oblige you,” retorted George. Then, after warmly grasping his leader by the hand, he bounded out of the tent. The night was black, and the rain was still descending in a veritable torrent, but to the lad everything seemed clear and rosy. He only saw before him a mighty adventure—and that, to his ardent, youthful spirit, made the whole world appear charming.

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