Tom wriggled along the tunnel to the hole. There he smeared some more dirt on the dirty blouse, put it into the hole with cunning care, and wriggled back. That morning at sunrise, when they peeked down from their prison windows into the eastern lot, even their straining eyes could scarcely see the tiny bit of blouse that showed. No casual glance would detect it. Of that they were sure. * * * * * Every few days new prisoners were thrust into Libby. Whenever this happened it was the custom that on the first evening they should tell whatever news they could of the outside world and of their own capture to the whole prison community. One morning the keeper of Libby receipted for another captured Yankee and soon Captain Jacob Johnson appeared in the grimy upper rooms. He responded very cordially, rather too cordially, to the greetings he received. It soon became understood that he was only a guerilla captain from Tennessee. Now neither side was overproud of the guerillas who infested the borderland, who sometimes called themselves Unionists and sometimes Confederates, and who did more stealing than fighting. So a rather cold shoulder was turned to the new captive, though the community's judgment upon him was deferred until after he should have been heard that evening. He seemed to try to warm the cold shoulder by a certain greasy sidling to and fro and by attempts at too familiar conversation. He began to talk to Colonel Rose, who soon shook him off, and to sundry other persons, among whom was Tom. The boy was not mature enough in the ways of the world to get rid of him. Johnson spent some hours with him and bored him to distraction. There was a mean uneasiness about him that repelled Tom. His face, an undeniably Yankee face, awoke some unpleasant memory, from time to time, but the boy could not place him and finally decided that this was merely a fancy, not a fact. None the less the man himself was an unpleasant fact. He peered about and sidled about in a way that might be due only to Yankee curiosity, but Tom didn't like it. He disliked Johnson more and more as the newcomer kept returning to him and growing more confidential. His talk was on various natural enough themes, but it kept veering back to the chances of escape. "I don't mean to stay in this hole long," Johnson whispered. "Pretty mean-spirited in all these fellows to just hang around here, without even trying to make a getaway. What d'ye say 'bout our trying it on, son?"