REUNITED
Al waited to hear no more, but slipped through a convenient doorway and
out into the kitchen. He was just going to the cellar door when he heard
Wallace's voice behind him.
"I'm going to stay with you, Al," he said. "Where shall we hide?"
Al turned like a flash and caught his friend by the shoulder.
"No, you don't, now, old fellow!" he exclaimed. "I'm outlawed, and you
're not going to put yourself deliberately in the same fix; no, indeed!
You're going out and surrender with the rest of the garrison; and no
doubt the whole lot of you will soon be paroled, for I don't believe the
rebs will want to carry a crowd of prisoners very far."
"Well, I'm going to stay with you, anyhow," persisted Wallace, doggedly.
"Wallace, don't be a fool!" cried Al, impatiently. Then, seeing that he
must exercise diplomacy to make his friend follow the safer course, he
went on, "Don't you see that it would be harder for two of us to escape
than one, especially when you are disabled? I know Mrs. Falkner. She
will hide me until I can get away, but she could not so easily hide two
of us. Just give me your revolver and ammunition; that's all I want, and
you take my musket and surrender it, so there'll be no question about
your being unarmed. Nobody but Colonel Harding knows I'm here or who I
am; and, if it comes up, you can tell him I've cut out and escaped,
probably up-river."
"Al, I hate to do it," said Wallace, hesitatingly.
"You needn't. It's best for us both," insisted Al. "Now go; time is
precious, and good luck to you."
They gripped each other's hands in a firm farewell and Al stepped to the
cellar door and opened it. Then he turned and shook his finger at
Wallace smilingly.
"Mind, now; if you're paroled, I'll see you in St. Louis inside of ten
days, and we'll have lemonade together, with ice in it, at the ice-cream
parlor near Third and Olive Streets."
He closed the door behind him and felt his way down the cellar stairs,
his heart by no means as light as he had tried to make Wallace believe.
"Mrs. Falkner! Mrs. Falkner!" he called, softly, on reaching the bottom.
There was no answer.
"Mrs. Falkner!" Al repeated. "It's Al Briscoe. I'm in trouble."
He heard the rustle of her dress as she came toward him, saying,
"Al Briscoe? In trouble?"
"Yes," he answered. "The city has just surrendered. I have been
fighting, though I am not an enlisted soldier, and if the Confederates
catch me I shall very likely be shot. Will you hide me for a little
while until I can escape from the city?"
"Why, of course I will, Al," exclaimed the kind-hearted lady, forgetting
her own distress of mind in concern for him. "I am only too glad to help
you. What time of day is it?"
"It is about noon, Mrs. Falkner."
"Then you will hardly dare to venture out before dark," she said. "Till
then you can stay in the cellar. If you feel your way, you will find a
pile of boxes in the corner back here which you can hide behind, if you
wish. But I am living alone in the house, except for old Dinah, and she
ran away up town when the battle began. I think no one will suspect that
you are hiding here. Are you hungry?"
"I have not eaten since last evening, in Arrow Rock," Al admitted.
"I will see if there is anything to eat upstairs," said Mrs. Falkner. "I
suppose the house is completely wrecked?"
"Not altogether," Al replied, "but it is in pretty bad shape."
The lady went upstairs and presently returned with some food and a
candle.
"Oh, everything is torn to pieces!" she groaned, as she handed these
things to Al. "I don't know how I shall ever repair it, all alone, as I
am." Then she continued, "You can see to eat by this candle and then
you had better put it out, in case any one should look down the cellar
stairs. Then, if you want to sleep, I will keep watch; and after dark I
will waken you, and you can go to an old cave I know of, in a clump of
bushes not far back of the house."
"Yes, I know the cave," said Al. "It's the very place. Your son Frank
and 'Chucky' Collins and I made that cave. We used to have a pirates'
den there."
He smiled up at her as he bit into a pink slice of cold ham, the first
he had tasted in months.
"Oh, did you, Al?" asked Mrs. Falkner in a low voice. She was silent a
moment, then went on, slowly, "The Collins boy is in the rebel army.
Frank--Frank--was killed at Prairie Grove." Her voice broke.
The smile vanished from Al's face.
"Oh, Mrs. Falkner!" he exclaimed. "How sorry I am. Poor old Frank! And
your husband--Doctor Falkner?"
"Is a surgeon in Sherman's army," she said. "So long as he is left to me
I should be thankful, for I am only one of thousands who have lost sons
or husbands in our Nation's cause. What of your own parents, Al?"
Then he told her of his father's death and Tommy's capture and of his
mother and Annie in St. Louis. For some time they talked, then Mrs.
Falkner returned upstairs, while Al lay down behind the pile of boxes
and was at once wrapped in the profound slumber of exhaustion.
No one disturbed the lonely house during the remaining hours of the day
nor the early ones of the following night, for most of the Confederate
army was farther uptown or in bivouac outside its limits. Sometime
toward morning Mrs. Falkner awakened Al and conducted him cautiously to
the cave, leaving him there with an ample supply of food for several
days. The next day and night passed and Al still lay in his cramped
refuge, undisturbed, but very stiff and uncomfortable and eager to get
out and away.
During the second day Mrs. Falkner came to the cave and dropped a note
down to him through a crack in the roof. In it she informed him that
Colonel Harding and his command had been paroled the day before and
marched away toward Jefferson City accompanied by an escort, to be
delivered within the Union lines, wherever these might be met with. The
last of the Confederate troops, she wrote, had just left, crossing the
Missouri on steamboats and marching away westward, to join General
Price's main army. The town was still quiet, but every one feared that
gangs of guerillas would soon swoop down upon it; and she advised Al to
make his escape as soon as darkness came.
Taking his revolver and such of his remaining food as he could
conveniently carry, he accordingly crept out of his hiding-place soon
after nightfall and made his way to the southeastward, following the
country roads and keeping his direction by the stars. About six o'clock
the next morning he arrived on the river bank opposite Boonville. Making
inquiries of a negro, he found that the town was in possession of Union
troops, and he soon crossed the river on the ferry. To his surprise and
delight, the paroled garrison of Glasgow was just coming into town when
he arrived, Wallace among them. They were loud in their praises of the
kind treatment they had received at the hands of their captors, and
especially of the escort under Lieutenant Graves, which had brought them
down to the near vicinity of Boonville; for the Confederate soldiers had
shared their rations with the prisoners and made their march as
comfortable as possible in every way.
At Boonville the paroled men separated to await exchange; and Al and
Wallace continued their journey together, going down to Jefferson City
in an army wagon and thence by the Pacific Railroad to St. Louis, where
they arrived safe during the second morning after leaving Boonville.
"Wallace," said Al, when they stepped from the train at the station and
walked out into the street, where drays and omnibuses were rattling over
the cobble stones and busy throngs of people covered the sidewalks, "the
first thing we do must be to find an ice-cream parlor. We won't go to
Third and Olive; that's too far from here. But I want to drink that
lemonade with you. I allowed ten days, you remember, but now it is
only,--let me see,--five days. Then you will go out to Palm Street with
me and see how a surprise affects my mother and Annie and--" he
hesitated, then added, hopefully, "Tommy."
The refreshing drink was pleasant but they fairly gulped it down, for
Al, now that at last he had reached his journey's end, was feverishly
eager to see his dear ones once more. So they hastened to Fifth Street
and boarded a north-bound horse car, which soon carried them to Palm
Street, though to Al in his impatience the journey seemed hours long. As
they came in sight of the house, Al saw his mother in the front yard,
transplanting some flowers from a bed to pots. Her back was toward the
street and the boys approached within a few feet without her hearing
them. Then Al took off his hat and stepped up behind her.
"Excuse me, madam," said he, gravely, "but is this where Mrs. Thomas
Briscoe lives?"
His mother turned and gave one startled glance at the brown-faced youth
before her, in his rough, travel-stained clothes, then dropped her
case-knife and flower pot on the ground, crying, in a voice thrilling
with joy,
"Al, Al! My dear, dear boy!"
The next instant she was in his arms and both of them were laughing and
crying at once. As soon as the first warm greeting was over, Al asked
fearfully,
"Mother, have you seen or heard anything of Tommy?"
He need not have asked the question, for at this juncture a straight,
boyish figure bounded through the front doorway, cleared the steps in
one jump and sprang into Al's arms.
"What, Tommy?" cried Al, in amazed delight. "Can it possibly be you, so
big and strong? I would not have known you. How and when did you get
here?"
"They sent me down on another boat after the _North Wind_ burned," Tommy
answered.
"But how did you know to stop in St. Louis?" asked Al.
"Why, I hunted up Uncle Will, of course, to have him help me get to
Minnesota, and then I was so glad to find that mama and Annie were
here," Tommy replied. "What a hunt you have had for me, dear old
brother!"
"Yes, but now we are together again, so everything has come out for the
best, even though I didn't find you myself. Mother, where is Annie?"
"She is in school," answered Mrs. Briscoe. "But she will be home at
three o 'clock. Tommy should be there, too, but he will not start until
next Monday. He is far back in studies for his age."
"But he must have learned many things in the last two years which he
never could have learned in school," said Wallace, who had been warmly
and affectionately greeted by Mrs. Briscoe.
"Yes, I did," admitted Tommy. "It was a great life up there among the
Indians, and Te-o-kun-ko was always very good to me, and so were his
squaw and the children. I think a lot of them all."
"We were a little afraid you might grow to think so much of them and of
their life that you would not want to come back to us," said Al.
Tommy glanced at him reproachfully.
"Why, Al," he exclaimed, "how could you think I would ever care as much
for any one as for mama and you and Annie and--" a shadow crossed his
face, "papa," he added.
Al, judging that his young brother did not yet realize any connection of
Te-o-kun-ko with Mr. Briscoe's death, and deciding not to explain it
until some later time, answered,
"We couldn't be sure, Tommy, for you know such things have happened."
"I was always sure," remarked Mrs. Briscoe, calmly, and, indeed, there
was no question that her mother's instinct had been correct, as it
almost always is.
"Well," said Wallace, "with all the knowledge of the Indians and their
ways you have gained, you ought to make a capital scout."
Tommy looked at him thoughtfully. "Perhaps I will--some day," he
replied. "But first I want to learn the things that other fellows know,
because I don't believe that without them, it is much use just to be
able to ride and shoot and track game and so on."
"Now, Al," Mrs. Briscoe interrupted, turning toward the door, "we all,
your aunt and uncle, too, will be eager to know what has happened to you
in the last six months, especially since you started west from Fort
Rice. The last letter I had from you was the one you sent from there, on
the eighteenth of July."
"There has been no chance to send you any since," replied Al. "And I got
your last letter, dated June 20, at Fort Rice on my way down from the
Yellowstone. So we shall all have much to tell each other. Although I
didn't succeed in rescuing Tommy in the way I hoped to do," he put his
arm affectionately over his small brother's shoulders, "I believe this
trip of mine has been good for me, and will be in the future for all of
us."
And so, indeed, it proved, for the following year Al readily secured an
appointment to West Point through the hearty endorsements of General
Sully and other army officers whom he had come to know in the Northwest;
and the father of Wallace Smith, after the close of the war had brought
prosperity and new floods of settlers to the Minnesota frontier, was
able to help Mrs. Briscoe to such a profitable sale of her desirable
claim near Fort Ridgely that she had enough to live upon comfortably at
her sister's hospitable home in St. Louis, while Tommy and Annie were
completing their education in the excellent schools of that city, and
sometimes spending a vacation in cruising up and down the Mississippi on
Captain Lamont's fine steamer. Thus Al's unselfish enterprise on behalf
of his brother, begun under such discouraging circumstances, resulted,
directly or indirectly, in advancing the interests and happiness of
himself and all those dearest to him; and he never had cause for
anything but gratitude and rejoicing over the friends made and the
experiences gained during his adventurous Summer with Sully in the Sioux
land.
THE END