CHAPTER XXVIII

CHECK AND COUNTER-CHECK

Dad wheeled. At the hillock’s foot, just in front of him, a bare ten feet away, stood a man in the frayed and stained gray uniform of a captain of Confederate cavalry.

A path, running down the hill, wound through thick undergrowth beyond. And along this thicket-grown path, from somewhere in the rear of the Confederate army, the captain had evidently ridden.

At sight of the two Northerners he must have dismounted; for his horse stood directly behind him within the high screen of bushes.

So silently had the man approached, and so engrossed had Dad been in the mighty fate that hung on his own strangely acquired tidings, that no warning of the enemy’s approach had come to put him on his guard.

And now the boy on the hillock crest and his grandfather near the hillock foot found themselves looking into the steadily leveled mouth of an army revolver.

The Confederate eyed them with a slight smile of almost deprecatory politeness.

“Hands up, I _said_,” he repeated.

“Hands up, Jimmie!” called Dad cheerfully, over his shoulder. “He’s got the drop on us. And a loaded pistol is apt to be a nasty thing to argue with. It’s got a snappish way of insisting on having the last word.”

He set his grandson the example by raising his own hands well above his head. Striding forward toward his captor, he smiled back into the Confederate’s smiling face and said:

“What next, sir? We seem to be at your orders. Or, rather, at your pistol’s. What do you want of us?”

“Why,” said the captain politely, his soft, slurring accent unruffled by the faintest trace of excitement, “I’m mighty sorry to discommode you, suh. But I’m afraid I’ll have to get you-all to walk ahead of me a half-mile or so along that path to where my company is resting for dinner.

“After that I’m afraid it’ll be Libby for you, suh, and Belle Isle prison for your little orderly up yonder. Off’cers to the right; privates to the left. May I trouble you to stand still in that uncomfortable attitude just a minute longer, suh?”

Shifting his pistol muzzle ever so little, and embracing both Dad and Jimmie in the same glance of his sleepy eyes, the Confederate raised his voice:

“You orderly up there!” he called. “Walk back to that sorrel horse! Straight back! He’s in line with you! Keep your hands up! Go back there and unfasten the bearing-rein from the bit. Then, with your hands still up, come down this slope in the same line and tie this gentleman’s wrists together with the rein.

“You see, suh,” he explained courteously to Dad, “the way is pretty crooked. And there’s bushes both sides of the road. I can’t quite make certain of you both, walking ahead of me, unless at least one of you is tied. Hurry up there, orderly! Get me that rein.”

“I’ll see you and Jeff Davis and Bob Lee and all the rest of the South in Kingdom Come, first!” shrilled Jimmie. “I put up my hands because Dad told me to. Not because I’m afraid of that pop-gun of yours. But if you think I’m going to tie him up for you--say, Reb, I could pretty near lick you myself. And I’ll try it, if you’re man enough to gimme half a show by pocketin’ that gun.”

“They breed ’em game in your part of the world, sonny,” smiled the captain. “And now that you’ve said your little piece, just shut up on the heroics and do as I tell you. A bullet hole in your little stomach would be a mighty unbecoming sight. Step lively!”

“I won’t!” roared Jimmie. “You soft-voiced bully! I’m getting to hate every bone in your body. Dad! Dad! Say, can I put my hands down, and I’ll take a chance with his gun. I licked Roddy Slade, and Roddy’s pretty near as big as that Reb is--I can do _him_, I bet you!”

“Jimmie!” called Dad, his voice steady with a gentle authority. “Do as he says.”

“_Dad!_”

“Exactly as he says,” ordered Dad.

“Oh, Dad! Let me--”

“Jimmie! Obey orders.”

There was now no doubt as to the authority in Dad’s voice. Jimmie groaned aloud and started at snail-pace toward the sorrel.

“I’d a lot rather charge a gun battery,” he lamented. “Say, Reb, I’m doing this because my grandfather tells me to. And he’s my s’perior officer. Not because you told me to, or because I’m scared of your gun. And say, you! Don’t you go getting the notion Dad’s a-scared of you, either. He isn’t scared of anything. I don’t know why he’s surrendering, but if he’s doing it, it’s all right, somehow.”

Still grumbling, mouthing horribly murderous threats, the boy began to unfasten the bearing rein from bit and saddle bow.

“You’ll pardon my grandson’s heat, sir,” apologized Dad to his captor. “He’s only a youngster, and he hasn’t learned philosophy yet. You see, we--

“Pardon me, captain,” broke off Dad, with a sudden wide grin as his eyes chanced to drop from the Confederate’s face to the leveled revolver whose muzzle was now less than a yard from his own chest, “but when you try to hold men up with a pistol, mightn’t it be just a trifle wiser to see that your pistol is cocked?”

The Confederate involuntarily glanced down at his weapon--which, by the way, chanced to be fully cocked--and at the same instant Dad struck.

He struck palm-wide with the speed of a cat. His open hand smote the Confederate across the knuckles; all the force of trained sinews and scientific skill behind the lightning-swift blow.

The pistol was knocked clean out of the captain’s hand and tumbled into the bushes; happily and irretrievably removed from the situation.

Dad’s hand in a flash was at his own holster.

But too late he remembered that he had left his pistol in his tent--having had no idea that he should be riding that day beyond his own army’s lines. He knew, too, that Jimmie was unarmed; for he himself had very vigorously vetoed the boy’s yearning to keep on carrying a huge revolver.

The ruse, to this point had succeeded with ridiculous ease. The Confederate, deceived by his captive’s meek submission, had been wholly unsuspecting.

Wherefore Dad had been able, without trouble, to edge up within striking distance and by use of a time-honored trick to distract and then disarm his would-be captor.

But as he reached in vain for his pistol the situation shifted once more. For the captain, his revolver lost, whipped out the light cavalry saber he carried, and, springing forward, swung the slender blade aloft for a stroke that should avenge his tricking. His colossal and courteous calm had momentarily forsaken him.

There was no time for Dad to snatch his own sword, no chance for thinking. But the blind instinct, wherewith a thousand primeval ancestors have succeeded in enrolling themselves among the “fittest,” came to Dad’s aid.

As the saber fell, he leaped back out of reach--yet barely far enough, for the blade grazed his arm in whizzing past; grazed it, glancingly; shearing a gash in coat and shirt sleeve, and the deflected blade raising a welt on the flesh of the upper arm.

Before the weapon could be swung aloft for a second slash, or its wielder’s arm shortened for a lunge, Dad was at the Confederate’s throat.

Bare-handed, unafraid, he ran in; too close to his foe to allow the use of saber play. The instinct that had prompted him to dodge and then to attack, had also warned him to come to grips before the saber could be put to use.

Had Dad sought to strike or to keep for an instant longer at long range, the sword would have rendered him helpless. As it was at close quarters he rendered the saber a handicap rather than an aid to his enemy.

Dad’s right hand found the captain’s throat. His left shot aloft and seized the wrist that brandished the saber. His lithe old body twisted forward and sideways into the “hiplock.”

The Confederate, meantime tugging furiously to free his own imprisoned sword-arm, struck with all his might, his left fist clenched, at Dad’s face.

Dad ducked and the blow landed full on the tough crown of his head.

Dad saw a choice assortment of stars, but he held his grip, dogged, tense, unyielding in spite of the dizzy nausea that the head blow had caused him.

The Confederate, on the contrary, cried out in sharp pain, and Dad, with a grim thrill of joy, knew why.

The fist, crashing with all its force on Dad’s skull, had met the same fate as has many a pugilist’s in landing a blow in the same inauspicious spot. Two of the Confederate’s fingers were broken by the jarring impact, and his wrist was badly sprained.

Dad, instinctively seeking to protect his own face, had resorted, without intent, to a favorite street-fight maneuver; by opposing his head-crown to a blow instead of his jaw. Hundreds of hands have been broken or otherwise put out of commission by that simple ruse.

The Confederate’s left hand being helpless, Dad shifted his own right from the man’s throat to the sword wrist. A heaving wrench of both hands and the saber flew from the captain’s back-twisted arm.

Jimmy (who, during the second or two that had elapsed since Dad and the Confederate had so unexpectedly shifted their rôles of captor and captive, had stared fascinated at the fray) now jumped forward with a whoop and snatched up the fallen saber.

“Where’ll I give it to him, Dad?” he yelled exultantly. “Not to hurt him much, but to make him let up on you.”

“Keep out of this!” panted Dad.

He could not, now, use his sword with honor, and it would hamper him. Leaping back he unbuckled belt and all, flung them in Jimmy’s direction, and closed again.

Disregarding the broken hand, the Confederate threw both arms about the old man in a right-unloving embrace, and the two crashed to earth.

Over and over they rolled; the Confederate pounding and struggling like mad; Dad seeking merely to gain the upper hand.

Jimmy danced about them, saber threateningly poised, shouting:

“Surrender, you! Surrender or I’ll stick this sword into you!”

He could not have carried out his threat, even had he so chosen. For the two men on the ground were so inextricably snarled together and were writhing and pummeling and shifting their relative positions with such suddenness, that the boy could not possibly attack one of them without an equal chance of injuring the other.

Presently they were on their feet, and Dad secured the hold he had been groping for. By use of a simple old wrestling trick known to athletes of those days as “bustling the bridge,” he whirled his foe fully a yard in air and brought him down breathless on his back with a thump that half-stunned the fallen man. As he fell Dad heard the shoulder bone crack.

Dad wasted no time. Kneeling on the Confederate’s forearms, he called to Jimmy:

“Son! That paper? Is it where I dropped it? The one I was reading when--”

“Lemme help you hold him down, Dad!” pleaded the boy, unhearing. “Maybe he’ll--”

“Jimmie!” roared Dad, the old voice vibrant with an authority the lad could not disregard. “Listen to me! (No, I don’t need any help. Keep away from his feet.) That bit of paper you found. The one that scared your horse. The one I was reading. Where is it? Find it! _Quick!_”

He bent to the task of quieting the wriggling Confederate; then went on:

“Find it! Is--”

“Here it is,” said Jimmy, sighting the fallen paper a few feet away and going to pick it up. “But, say, let me help--”

“Have you got it?” demanded Dad, far too busy with his fallen antagonist to look around.

“Yes, sir. Here it is. Oh, Dad, smash him! Don’t let him wriggle free. Why don’t you hit him? He ain’t really down! Make him say he’s had enough. Want any help, sir? Shall I pitch in, too? Or can I sic Emp onto him? I--”

“Quick, son!” broke in Dad, his voice shaken by passionate earnestness, as he bent every atom of strength to maintain his position above his foe. “Take that paper, jump on the horse in the path yonder, and _ride_ straight to General McClellan! I pointed out his headquarters to you. Get that paper to him. No matter what happens to stop you. _Get_ it to him, and tell him how we found it. Ride, lad! Hang on by mane, or saddle, or any way you like, but _ride_! It’s for our country. It may even save the Union. You can serve America to-day better than fifty generals. Get that paper to him! Into his own hands! Ride the horse to death if you have to!”

Each sentence came in a shouted gasp. At the first words the Confederate had redoubled his struggles and, by a mighty heave, had all but reversed their positions. Despite the handicap of a broken hand and wrenched shoulder the Southerner was fighting like a wildcat.

And knowledge of the injuries made Dad gentle in dealing with him. The old man struck no blow; merely held to earth his writhing opponent, and shouted the gasping commands to his grandson.

In all his fifteen years, Battle Jimmie had never heard so excited, so madly pleading a tone in his beloved grandfather’s voice.

In no way understanding the cause for the vehemence, he felt none the less the pressing need to obey. If, in that tone, Dad had bidden him eat one of the horses, Jimmie would at once have started to gnaw the nearest hoof.

He ran down the slope, seized the rein and pommel of the captain’s horse, a black Virginia thoroughbred, scrambled to the saddle, sticking the sheet of paper inside the neck of his shirt, and dug his heels into the horse’s side with every ounce of his energy.

Much has been written--chiefly in verse--of the intelligence and loyalty of a thoroughbred horse. But that same loyalty and intelligence does not prevent him from allowing himself to be ridden away by a thief from under the very eyes of his master.

Wherein even the best horse appears to show infinitely less sense and affection than does a mongrel dog or even an alley cat.

Under his new and clumsy rider’s exhortations, the black thoroughbred bounded up the slope.

“I’m off!” called Battle Jimmie, stopping. “But--say! I wish I could stay and help you. Are you dead sure you can finish licking him without me, Dad?”

“Yes!” gasped Dad. “Go--everything depends on it! You’re carrying the fate of the whole army! _Ride!_ And--God go with you, lad!”

“All right, sir! Get back there, Emp! Go back! Wait for Dad! You can’t keep up with me!”

Over the hillock crest swept the black horse, the boy clinging to his mane and, by kicks and shouts, urging him to top speed. Over the hill summit and down the steep slope and on until the thud of hoofs died to the straining ears of Dad.

Then Dad turned back to the business in hand; first angrily shoving off Emp, who, with shrill barks, had been encircling the fighters, seeking for a good chance to sink his teeth into some part of the Confederate’s struggling anatomy.

But there was little more to do. With a final kick and a straining heave of the shoulders, the Southerner’s body all at once grew limp.

“Fainted from the pain, poor cuss!” mused Dad, rising. “But maybe it’s best to make sure.”

He passed the dropped bearing rein about the senseless man’s ankles; then fell to examining the hurt hand and shoulder. As Dad worked over him, the Confederate opened his eyes and lay very quiet, staring up at his conqueror.

“Nothing dangerous,” cheerily reported Dad. “Broken fingers and--I guess your collar bone needs attention.”