"When yeh goin' to shoot these Yanks, Captain?" "Well," said the guerilla chief, hesitatingly, and stopped. Then he shot a furtive glance at the short, broad-shouldered man. The latter was sitting in a lounging attitude with his arms clasped around his knees, but his eyes were fixed steadily on Yeager. "Well," began the Captain, again. "I ain't a-goin' to shoot 'em. I'm a-goin' to take 'em down an' turn 'em over to General Price." He looked again at the short man, who was now gazing calmly out over the river. The boys breathed sighs of relief and thanksgiving, for it seemed they were to be saved for the moment, at least, from their most imminent peril of being murdered in the woods. "What?" cried Jim, angrily. "Yeh told me yeh'd shoot 'em if I got 'em fer yeh." "I find they ain't deservin' uh death," returned Yeager, with dignity. "Leastways, not unless ordered by a reg'lar military court." "Oh, thunder!" exclaimed Jim. He frowned in disappointed hatred at Al, then turned and walked away. "Well, I must be goin'," said he. "I got business up to Lexington." "Hold on!" cried Yeager. "What's yer hurry? We're just startin' fer Arrer Rock to take these prisoners to General Price. I want you fer a witness ag'in 'em." "Aw, no, I can't do no good," returned Jim, hastily, continuing to back away. "I've told yeh all I know about 'em. I got to go." Then he felt a nudge on his arm and looked at the short man, who had risen and, with his hand on his big holster, was gazing up into Jim's face. "Pshaw, you'd better come with us," said he, in a soft voice. Jim's eyes wavered, then shot a desperate, hunted look around over the crowd. But by a great effort he controlled himself. "Oh, very well. Yes," he replied, with as much carelessness as he could assume. "I'll go." The horses of the guerilla gang were tied a few yards back in the timber. The boys were led to them and mounted, each one riding between two guards; and then the party, forming in a rough column of fours, started out. They soon emerged from the woods, passed up through a ravine and so out upon the bluffs, where presently they turned into a faintly marked country road running to the southeast, toward Arrow Rock. For hours they travelled, alternately at a trot and a walk, through the pretty, rolling country of Saline County, now passing among stretches of forest, gay with the foliage of Autumn, and again moving across reaches of open land, dotted here and there with little farms, most of them deserted and falling to decay. But always they avoided the main roads and often they travelled across the fields, through ravines and along the lower edge of ridges, making it evident that these men possessed a knowledge of the country as intimate as that of the Sioux in the Northwest.