RECAPTURED.
Our first objective point after leaving our negro friends was a ferry on
the Sulphur Fork of Red River, to which we had been directed by them.
We had reached the plain, direct road to the place, and were journeying
along quite happily, in single file, about 2 o'clock A. M. on Sunday,
our ninth day out, when we suddenly met and passed a negro man. Our
recent experience prompted me to interview him, and my comrades halted
in the brush by the roadside while I retraced my steps to overtake the
man and learn what we had to expect as we advanced.
He stopped readily as I caught up with him and called out, proving to be
a very intelligent darkey, who was on his way home after having been to
see his best girl. We had a long and satisfactory talk, and I took him
to where my companions were waiting. We found that he was well posted on
army matters and the general situation of the country, and he seemed
quite anxious to help us all he could, informing us of our near
proximity to the ferry, which we might have trouble to cross without
help.
By the advice of our new friend, whose name was George, and with his
guidance, we removed to a secure hiding place in a ravine, while he
agreed to see a friend of his who worked for the ferryman and endeavor
to arrange with him for our trip across the river. Our hiding place was
perfectly secure against anything except the mosquitoes and gnats, and
we were soon discovered by large numbers of these companionable insects.
George was to see us again in the afternoon, and we tried to pass away
the time by sleeping, but our attempts were not successful. We arranged
to sleep in turns, one sitting up to keep off the flies and mosquitoes,
but it was more than one could do to keep the tormentors away from his
own face and hands; so each of us had to sit up for himself, and
sleeping was impossible.
At the appointed time George brought us some food and informed us that
we could cross the ferry that night, which we did, his friend ferrying
us without charge. The interest of the negroes in us was very great, and
they could not do enough for us.
When we left the ferry it was dark and muddy, and we lost our way in the
river bottom. After wandering around for a time we blundered into a
brier patch and stuck fast in the thorns. The work of our knives, with
the assistance of considerable emphatic language, finally released us,
and we eventually stumbled into the road again, completely exhausted.
Lying down in the mud at the side of the road, we got what sleep we
could until daylight dawned.
Our breakfast consisted of biscuits and sow belly, the latter not being
remarkable for its freshness.
Proceeding on our way, we came to a huckleberry swamp, into the recesses
of which we retired to avoid ferry passengers and to eat our fill of the
fruit, which we did at our leisure.
Later in the day we emerged from the swamp and soon came to the high
road, which we crossed in a hurry. Coming to a good camping place, we
stopped to light a fire and try to cook some sweet potatoes.
Our fire department was called upon to furnish us with a light, and we
crowded about him to witness the operation.
The gallant chief produced the apparatus with a confident air, and I
loaned him my jack-knife for a steel. He held the gourd handle between
his knees, as he had seen the negro boy hold it, carefully placing the
charred cotton therein, and then, with all the apparent assurance
imaginable, he took the flint and steel in his hands, as his instructor
had directed, and struck a careless blow with the knife. Not a spark
responded to his call, and he looked up at us inquiringly. One of us
suggested that it might be necessary to strike a more careful blow on
the edge of the flint, and the captain struck such a blow, the result
being a shower of sparks that flew all around, but not into the gourd
handle. Several more blows followed, with a like result, when three
careful attempts were made to catch one of the many sparks which he now
had no trouble in producing, the failure causing another inquiring look.
I suggested that possibly this was a case for a general alarm and more
help, and Johnson hinted delicately that our chief was not sufficiently
well trained in his business. These comments caused an invitation to be
extended for us to try it ourselves, but we were all modest and
declined.
[Illustration: CAPT. THOMAS M. FEE.]
The chief now made one or two more unsuccessful attempts to catch a
spark in the cotton, and each effort produced a laugh from us and an
inelegant remark from the captain. The expression upon his face and the
glare in his eye caused us to move farther away before offering any
further advice, when I suggested that he should stop this fooling and
strike a light. His reception of my remark was decidedly ungracious, and
I retired behind a log, while he made another attempt. This time he
caused a spark to alight on the charred cotton, but he forgot to blow it
while he looked around with a smile of triumph on his face, and when he
looked back at the spark there was none there. The mutterings and
suppressed laughter of the rest of us caused the chief to make some
emphatic remarks of a lurid nature, and, when I remarked that we
would wait while he went back to find the negro boy, he grew furious in
his denunciation of such ancient methods of procuring fire. Then I
suggested that the potatoes would spoil if he did not hurry up, dodging
down behind my log as he looked at me with anything but a loving glance.
He now made several careful attempts to locate another spark in the
tinder, but history did not repeat itself, and he got up, exclaiming,
hoarsely:
"I'll be everlastingly d----d if I know as much as a 10-year-old
nigger."
Glaring around him, he caught sight of my head above the log, striving
to suppress my laughter enough to utter some words of consolation, when
he violently threw the whole fire department at my head, saying:
"Damn you, Swiggett; I suppose I'll never hear the end of this!" and he
walked off by himself.
We ate our sweet potatoes raw, as no one cared to risk further failure
with the fire apparatus, and after a time our crestfallen chief came
back and joined us. Several remarks by the others about the delicacy of
baked sweet potatoes were noted by him, and a wild glare at the speakers
was the result. I remarked to Captain Gedney that the niggers were very
kindly, but that their education was sadly neglected, and that a man who
had not as much sense as a 10-year-old negro boy was not a remarkable
man.
"You fellows want to let up, or I'll kill some of you," remarked Fee,
and then, after the subject had been dropped for a time:
"Say, boys, what will you take to keep mum about this?"
After some bargaining, we finally agreed to keep his experience a
secret, and peace was restored; but we had not agreed to drop the
matter, and as long as we were together the captain would occasionally
see one of us sit down in a confident way and go through a pantomime in
which were reproduced his expressions and actions while trying to run
our fire department.
The same afternoon, while we were peacefully resting, in seeming
security, on the sunny side of the sloping bank of a little creek, we
discovered a man on horseback. He was not far off, and carried a gun on
his shoulder, being engaged in following the slow trail of a hound, and
evidently on our tracks.
We could not run, as he was too near to allow of hope for escape from
his gun, and the surrounding country was too open for successful
concealment; so we contented ourselves with such protection as the
available logs and trees afforded, more because he might shoot when he
discovered us than in hope of evading him.
The discovery soon came, when he halted, gazed upon us with a
frightened stare, and screamed out:
"Come, boys; here they are!"
In a moment two other horsemen galloped up, being armed with
double-barreled shotguns. They seemed to be worse scared than we were,
for their hunt was for runaway negroes, and here they had found six
white men, who might be armed.
A deathlike stillness prevailed for some minutes, when it became
apparent that they, who were undoubtedly our captors if they wished to
be, were afraid of us. Seeing this, I crawled from behind my friendly
log and stepped in their direction across the little creek, intending to
discuss the matter of letting them go about their business while we went
about our own, but the leader suddenly wheeled his horse, brought his
gun to a level and commanded me to come no closer. I mildly suggested
that an unarmed man could not harm them, but he responded by repeating
his command and ordering us under arrest.
Being without weapons, and the situation becoming serious, we had no
choice but to submit, for argument was now dangerous.
As we made our captors no trouble, they became comparatively friendly
after we had surrendered, and we then learned, as we had before
surmised, that they were looking for some runaway negroes. They had
found our tracks, where we had slept by the roadside the night before,
and in the huckleberry patch, where we had done much foraging, and had
seen that one of the tracks showed a shoe much run over at the side,
which tallied with that worn by old Ned, one of the escaped darkeys.
This track was left by my shoe, and I was at once dubbed "Old Ned" by my
companions, Captain Fee remarking that the title was appropriate in
several ways.
Despite all our efforts to tell a satisfactory story about ourselves,
and to appear careless and independent, our interviewers evidently
suspected us to be what we were, and they plied us with questions,
finally accusing us of being escaped prisoners, refusing to listen to
reason, and ordering us to fall in and move on ahead of them toward the
nearest headquarters. Then we pleaded and made all sorts of future
promises if they would let us go on about our business, but they were
obdurate, and we sadly filed off toward the road, being promised a dose
of lead if we tried to run.
Our reflections were now far from pleasant, and for a time we were much
depressed, but there was no use of crying, and so we gradually recovered
our spirits and hoped for the best.