"He was the last person in the world I expected to see when I left the steamer at Cedar Bluff landing to get ahead of the Yankee cotton-factor in St. Louis," said Rodney. "Tom had been over Cape Girardeau way on business, and got a trifle out of his reckoning when Mr. Westall and his party of Emergency men picked him up and brought him to the wood-cutters' camp. We slept there that night and came out together in the morning." This was a desperate story to tell, seeing that they were not yet out of reach of men who could easily prove that there was quite as much falsehood as truth in it, but Rodney did not know what else to say. He rested his hopes of safety upon the supposition that the Confederate captain had done all his scouting on interior lines, and that he had not been into the river counties until he came to Truman's house to rescue him and Tom from the power of the Union men; and there was where his good luck stood him in hand. More than that, Dick Graham was one of the best known members of his regiment, and it would have taken a pretty good talker to make the captain believe that there could be anything wrong with one of Dick's friends. While this conversation was going on Rodney noticed that the captain was constantly on his guard, and that as often as they reached a place where the woods came down close to the road on each side, his men closed up the ranks without waiting for orders. Every house they passed was as dark as a dungeon, and no sounds of music and dancing came from the negro quarters. The people, white and black, had gone into their houses and barred their doors to wait until these unwelcome visitors in gray had taken themselves out of the neighborhood. Before the captain went into camp, which he did about midnight, Tom Percival, as we shall continue to call him, had ample time to question the lieutenant and find out where his regiment was stationed and when he expected to join it. The last question, however, was one that the young officer could not answer with any degree of accuracy. "You see we have some men with us who are not in uniform, do you not?" said he. "Well, they are the recruits we have picked up since we have been out on this scout. They have been terribly persecuted by the Union men in their settlement, and want us to stop on our way back long enough to burn those Union men out. If we do, it will delay us a day or two; if we don't, and keep lumbering right along, we shall be with the rest of the boys in less than forty-eight hours." This was what Tom wanted to know; and he decided that when the squad reached the old post-rode and turned up toward the place at which the regiment was stationed, he would go south toward Springfield, and so avoid the risk of meeting Dick Graham.