I went to Gholson. He told me I was relieved of my captive and bade me
go care for my horse and return in half an hour. In going I passed close
by the Sessions plantation house. Every door and window was thrown wide
to the night air, and preparations were in progress for a dance; and as
I returned, a slave boy ran across my path, toward the house, bearing a
flaming pine torch and followed by two ambulances filled with daughters
of the neighborhood in clouds of white gauze. I found the General in
fatigue dress. His new finery hung on the tent-pole at his back. Old
Dismukes, the bull-necked colonel of the Arkansans, lounged on a
camp-cot. Both smoked cigars.
The General asked me a number of idle questions and then said my
prisoner had called me a good soldier. Old Dismukes smiled so broadly
that I grew hot, believing the Yankee had told them of my tears.
"Smith," said the Colonel, and then smoked and smiled again till my brow
beaded,--"tired?"
"No, sir."
"That's a lie," he pleasantly remarked, and lay back, enjoying my silent
wrath. "Send him, General," he added, "he's your man."
The General looked at me between puffs of his cigar. "I hear you've
ridden over fifty miles to-day."
"Yes, General." "If I give you a good fresh horse can you go
twenty-three miles more by midnight?"
"Yes, General, if I don't have to save the horse."
"The horse may have to save you," drawled the Arkansan.
"I think you know Lieutenant Durand?" asked the General, with a
quizzical eye.
"Slightly."
"Well, Smith, on his suggestion approved by Major Harper, I have
detailed another clerk to the Major."
Rills of perspiration tickled my back like flies. "Can't one man do the
work?"
"Yes, the new man is detailed in your place."
I almost leaped from the ground in consternation. My whole frame
throbbed, my mouth fell open, my tongue was tied.
The man who had got me into this thing--this barrel--lifted the
tent-flap. "Mr. Gholson," said the General, "write an order assigning
Smith to Ferry's scouts."
The flap fell again and my panic was turned into a joy qualified only by
a reduced esteem for my general as a judge of character.
Old Dismukes rose. "Good-night. Shall I send this boy that Yankee's
horse?"
"Oh I was forgetting that; yes, do!"