BEN MAKES A FAILURE.
“But, captain,” said Tom Allison, who was delighted by this prompt and
emphatic indorsement of his friend’s plan, “are you sure the thing can
be done without bringing suspicion upon any of us? You have a lot of
property that will burn, and so has Mark’s father’s and mine. Remember
that. Are you positive that Buffum can be trusted, and has he courage
enough to take him through?”
“Nobody aint a-going to get into no trouble if you uns do like I tell
you and go and send Buffum up here to me,” replied Beardsley. “Am I
likely to disremember that I’ve got a lot of things left that will burn
as easy as my dwellin’ house did? and do you reckon I’d take a hand in
the business if I wasn’t sure it would work? Your Uncle Lon has got a
little sense left yet. And I’ll pertect you uns too, if you will keep
still tongues into your heads and let me do all the talkin’. You’ll find
Buffum down to his house if you go right now. I seen him pikin’
that-a-way acrosst the fields when I rode up from Nashville not more’n
two hours ago. Tell him I want to see him directly, and then watch out.
Somethin’s goin’ to happen this very night.”
“Who do you think will be captured first?” asked Mark.
“Marcy Gray, of course,” replied Tom. “He must be first, or at least one
of the first, for by the time two or three foragers have been captured
on two or three different nights, the rest of the refugees will become
suspicious and change their way of sending out foragers.”
“S’pos’n they do,” exclaimed Beardsley. “Won’t Buffum be right there in
their camp, to take notus of every change that is made, and as often as
he comes home can’t he slip up here and post me? Now, you hurry up and
tell Buffum I want to see him directly.”
As Beardsley emphasized his words by turning away from the fence and
hastening toward the place where he had dropped his hoe, the boys did
not linger to ask any more questions, but jumped their horses over the
ditch and started in a lope for Buffum’s cabin.
“I almost wish we had gone straight to Buffum’s in the first place and
kept away from Beardsley,” said Mark as they galloped along. “It is
bound to end in the breaking up of that band of refugees, and when it is
done, Beardsley will claim all the honor, and perhaps declare that the
plan originated in his own head.”
“And he’ll have to stand the brunt of it if things don’t work as we hope
they will,” added Tom. “If he lisps it in his daughter’s presence it
will get all over the State in twenty-four hours, and then there’ll be
some hot work around here.”
Half an hour’s riding brought the boys to Buffum’s cabin, which stood in
the middle of a ten-acre field that had been planted to corn, and so
rapidly did they approach it that they caught the owner in the act of
dodging out of the door with a heavy shot-gun in his hands. Believing
that he had been fairly surprised and was about to fall into the hands
of Confederate troopers, the man’s cowardly nature showed itself. He
leaned his gun against the cabin and raised both hands above his head in
token of surrender; but when he had taken a second look and discovered
that he had been frightened without good reason, he snatched up his gun
again and aimed it at Tom Allison’s head.
“Halt!” he shouted. “I’ll die before I will be tooken.”
“Why didn’t you talk that way before you saw who we were?” demanded Tom.
“You can’t get up a reputation for courage by any such actions. Captain
Beardsley wants to see you at his house.”
“What do you reckon he wants of me?” inquired the man, letting down the
hammers of his gun and seating himself on the doorstep. “Aint nary
soldier behind you, is they?”
“We haven’t seen a soldier for a week,” replied Tom. “We haven’t come
here to get you into trouble——”
“But to put you in the way of making some money,” chimed in Mark.
“Well, you couldn’t have come to a man who needs money wuss than I do,”
said Buffum, becoming interested. “What do you want me to do?”
“We want you to break up that camp of refugees down there in the swamp.”
“Then you’ve come to the wrong pusson,” said Buffum, shaking his head in
a very decided way. “Don’t you know that I’m livin’ in that camp, and
that I don’t never come out ’ceptin’ when I know there aint no rebel
soldiers scoutin’ around?”
“How does it happen that you know when there are no rebel scouts in the
settlement?” inquired Mark. “Somebody must keep you posted.”
“I’ve got friends, and good ones, too.”
“So I supposed,” continued Mark. “And you know on what nights Marcy Gray
goes to his mother’s house after grub, don’t you? I thought so. Well, if
you will let us know when he expects to go there again it will be money
in your pocket.”
“How much money?” asked Buffum; and his tone and manner encouraged the
boys to believe that, if sufficient inducement were held out, he might
be depended on to supply the desired information. He picked up a twig
that lay near him, and broke it in pieces with fingers that trembled
visibly.
“You can set your own price,” replied Mark. “And bear in mind that you
will not run the slightest risk. Who is going to suspect you if you take
pains to remain in camp on the night Marcy is captured? Now will you go
down and talk to Beardsley about it?”
“You’re sure you didn’t see nary soldier while you was comin’ up here?”
said the man doubtfully.
“We didn’t, and neither did we hear of any. You don’t want to follow the
road, for you will save time and distance by going through the woods.
You will find Beardsley in the field north of where his house used to
stand. You’ll go, won’t you?”
Buffum said he would think about it, and the boys rode away, satisfied
that he would start as soon as they were out of sight.
“So far so good, with one exception,” said Tom, as they rode out of the
field into the road. “We talked too much, and Beardsley told us
particularly to keep still.”
“I don’t care if he did,” answered Mark spitefully. “This is my plan,
and if it works I want, and mean to have, the honor of it. I hope it
will get to Marcy’s ears, for when he is in the army I want him to know
that I put him there.”
“He’ll know it,” said Tom with a laugh. “Buffum’s wife was in the cabin,
and heard every word we said.”
While Tom and Mark were spending their time in this congenial way, Marcy
Gray and his fellow-refugees were finding what little enjoyment they
could in acting as camp-keepers, or visiting their friends and relatives
in the settlement. Just now there was little scouting done by either
side. The Confederates at Williamston had lost about as many men as they
could afford to lose in skirmishes with the Federals, who were always
strong enough to drive them and to take a few prisoners besides, and had
grown weary of searching for a camp of refugees which they began to
believe was a myth.
“It’s always stillest jest before a storm,” Ben Hawkins had been heard
to say, “and this here quiet is goin’ to make all we uns so careless
that the first thing we know some of us will turn up missin’.”
And on the night following the day during which Tom Allison and Mark
Goodwin paid their visit to Buffum’s cabin, Ben came very near making
his words true by turning up missing himself. The camp regulations
required that every member should report at sunset, unless he had
received permission to remain away longer, and especially were the
foragers expected to be on hand to make preparations to go out again as
soon as night fell. Ben Hawkins was one of three who went out on the
night of which we write, and he came back shortly before daylight to
report that he had barely escaped surprise and capture in his father’s
house.
“But I’ve got the grub all the same,” said he, placing a couple of
well-filled bags upon the ground near the tree under which he slept in
good weather. “I was bound I wouldn’t come without it, and that’s what
made me so late.”
“Did you see them?” asked the refugees in concert. “Were they soldiers
from Williamston?”
“Naw!” replied Hawkins in a tone of disgust. “They were some of Shelby’s
pesky Home Guards. Leastwise the two I saw were Home Guards, but I
wasn’t clost enough to recognize their faces. Now I want you all to
listen and ask questions next time you go out, and find, if you can, who
all is missin’ in the settlement. I had a tol’able fair crack at them
two, and I don’t reckon they’ll never pester any more of we uns.”
The man Buffum was there and listening to every word, and he had so
little self-control that it was a wonder he did not betray himself.
Probably he would if it had not been that all the refugees showed more
or less agitation.
“Didn’t I say that we uns would get too careless for our own good?”
continued Hawkins. “I’ve got so used to goin’ and comin’ without bein’
pestered that I didn’t pay no attention to what I was doin’, and ’lowed
myself to be fairly ketched in the house. I’d ’a’ been took, easy as you
please, if I’d ’a’ had soldiers to deal with.”
“Where are the two foragers who went out with you?” inquired Marcy.
“Aint they got back yet?” exclaimed Hawkins, a shade of anxiety settling
on his bronzed features. “I aint seed ’em sence I left ’em up there at
the turn of the road, like I always do when we go after grub. They went
their ways and I went mine, and I aint seed ’em sence. What will you bet
that they aint tooken?”
The refugees talked the matter over while they were eating breakfast and
anxiously awaiting the appearance of the missing foragers, and asked one
another if Mr. Hawkins would be likely to lose any buildings because Ben
had been detected in the act of carrying two bags of provisions from his
house. Ben said cheerfully that he did not look for anything else, and
that he expected to spend a good many nights in setting bonfires in
different parts of the settlement. No one hinted that this sudden
activity on the part of the Home Guards might be the result of a
conspiracy, and, so far as he knew, Marcy Gray was the only one who
suspected it. The houses toward which the foragers bent their steps,
when they separated at the turn, stood at least three miles apart and in
different directions, and it seemed strange to Marcy that those
particular houses should have been watched on that particular night. He
thought the matter would bear investigation, and with this thought in
his mind he set out immediately after breakfast, with the black boy
Julius for company, to see if any of the Home Guards had paid an
unwelcome visit to his mother since he took leave of her the day before.
On his way he passed through the field in which the overseer Hanson had
been taken into custody and marched off to Plymouth, and the negroes who
were at work there at once gathered around to tell him the news. Early
as it was, they had had ample time to learn all about it.
“Did the Home Guards trouble my mother?” asked Marcy after listening to
their story.
“No, sah; dey didn’t. But dey gobble up two of dem refugees so quick dey
couldn’t fight, but dey don’t git Moster Hawkins kase he too mighty
handy wid his gun.”
“Do you know whether or not he shot any of them?”
“We’s sorry to be ’bleeged to say he didn’t,” was the reply. “You want
to watch out, Marse Mahcy, an’ don’t luf nobody round hyar know when you
comin’ home nex’ time.”
Marcy had already decided to follow this course, but he did not say
anything to the talkative darkies about it. If he had decided at the
same time that he wouldn’t mention it in camp, it would have been better
for him.
While Marcy was visiting his mother (and all the while he was in her
presence there were four trusty negroes outside, watching the house),
Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin were trying to learn what had become of the
two refugees who had fallen into the hands of the Home Guards; and when
they found that both Beardsley and Shelby were absent from home on
business, they thought they knew.
“They have been taken to jail,” said Mark, who was delighted over the
success of his plan, but angry at Beardsley because the latter did not
wait a few nights and make sure of Marcy Gray, instead of capturing two
men who were of no consequence one way or the other. “But between you
and me, I don’t envy the Home Guards the task they have set for
themselves. If all the refugees are like Hawkins somebody is going to
get hurt.”
While Mark talked in this way he and Tom were riding toward Beardsley’s
plantation, and now they turned through his gate, passed the ruins of
his dwelling, and finally drew rein in front of the house in which the
overseer lived when Beardsley thought he could afford to hire one, but
which was now occupied by his own family. His daughter came to the door,
and the boys saw at once that she knew all about it.
“Paw and Shelby has took them two fellers to Williamston,” she said in
her ordinary tone of voice, as though there was nothing secret in it.
“And they’re goin’ to bring some of our soldiers back with ’em, kase he
’lows, paw does, that it wouldn’t be safe for him and Shelby to fool
with Mahcy Gray. He’s got too many friends, and paw ’lows that he aint
got no more houses to lose.”
Tom and Mark turned away without making any reply or asking any
questions. They did not want to hear any more. Beardsley had cautioned
them not to say a word about it, and here he had gone and told it to his
daughter, which was the same as though he had written out a full
description of Mark’s plan and put it on the bulletin-board in the
post-office. When Tom looked into his companion’s face he was surprised
to see how white it was.
“Mark,” said he in a low whisper, “we’re in the worst scrape of our
lives, and if we come safely out of it I’ll promise that I will never
again try to interfere with Marcy Gray. He can go into the army or stay
out of it, just as he pleases. If he ever finds out what we have been up
to what will become of us?”
“If he hasn’t found it out already it is his own fault,” replied Mark,
who had never before been so badly frightened. “Everybody in the
settlement knows it, and some enemy of ours will be sure to tell him.
Tom, I wish we had let him alone.”
But Mark’s repentance came too late. The mischief had been done, and
Marcy Gray was industriously collecting evidence against him and his
companion in guilt. He had already heard enough to satisfy him on three
points: that the plan for capturing the refugees in detail originated
with Tom and Mark, that Captain Beardsley had undertaken to do the work,
and that at least one of the refugees was a traitor. But unfortunately
he shot wide of the mark when he began casting about for someone on whom
to lay the blame. He suspected one of Ben Hawkins’ comrades who had been
captured and parolled at Roanoke Island. There were seven of them, and
one of their number, beyond a doubt, had furnished the information that
enabled the Home Guards to capture the two men who had been taken to
Williamston. He never once suspected the man Buffum. If he had, he would
have dismissed the suspicion with a laugh, for everyone knew that Buffum
was too big a coward to take the slightest risk.
When Marcy took leave of his mother he rode straight to Beardsley’s, and
was not very much surprised to learn that the captain had left home
early that morning to “’tend to some business over Williamston way.” His
ignorant daughter tried to be very secretive, and succeeded so well that
Marcy would have been stupid indeed if he hadn’t been able to tell what
business it was that took her father “over Williamston way.” Then he
changed the subject and surprised her into giving him some other
information.
“Hawkins made a lively fight for the Home Guards last night, did he
not?” said Marcy. “How many of them did he kill?”
“Nary one. Didn’t hit nary one, nuther,” answered the girl. “Paw ’lowed
that if Ben had had a gun he’d ’a’ hurt somebody; but he popped away
with a little dissolver, and you can’t hit nothin’ with a dissolver.
Mind you, I don’t know nothin’ about it only jest what the niggers told
me.”
“Some folks might believe that story, but I don’t,” said Marcy to
himself, as he wheeled his horse and rode from the yard. “When the
darkies get hold of any news they don’t go to you with it.”
From Beardsley’s Marcy went to Nashville, stopping as often as he met
anyone willing to talk to him, and going out of his way to visit the
homes of the two refugees who had been captured the night before, and
everywhere picking up little scraps of evidence against Tom, Mark, and
Beardsley; but everyone was so positive that there could not be a
traitor in the camp of the refugees, that Marcy himself began to have
doubts on that point. Ben Hawkins’ father and mother took him into the
house and showed him the chair in which Ben was sitting when four masked
men rushed into the room, two through each door, and tried to capture
him.
“But my Ben, he aint a-skeered of no Home Guards,” said Mr. Hawkins
proudly. “Before you could say ‘Gen’ral Jackson’ with your mouth open,
he riz, an’ when he riz he was shootin’. An’ it would ’a’ done you good
to see the way them masked men humped themselves. They jest nacherly
fell over each other in tryin’ to get to the doors, an’ Ben, he made a
grab fur the nighest, thinkin’ to pull off the cloth that was over his
face, so’t we all could see who it was; but he couldn’t get clost
enough. Then Ben, he run too; but he come back after the grub. He said
he had been sent fur it an’ was goin’ to have it. Ben ’lowed that, if
they had been soldiers instead of Home Guards, we wouldn’t never seen
him no more.”
“And I am afraid that we shall have to deal with soldiers from this time
on,” replied Marcy. “You wait and see if Beardsley doesn’t bring some
from Williamston when he comes back.”
“That there man is buildin’ a bresh shanty over his head as fast as he
can,” said Mr. Hawkins. “He won’t have nary nigger cabin if this thing
can be proved on him.”
“But there is going to be the trouble. We can’t prove it; and if some of
the Home Guards could be frightened into making a confession, Beardsley
would have no trouble in proving by his folks that he wasn’t outside of
his house last night.”
It was five o’clock that afternoon when Marcy returned to camp and made
his report. He found there several refugees who had spent the day in the
settlement, and the stories they had to tell differed but little from
his own; but Marcy noticed that there wasn’t one who ventured to hint
that there was a spy and informer in the camp. Consequently he said
nothing about it himself, but quietly announced that he had concluded to
change his night for foraging. He did not hesitate to speak freely, for
he noticed that there was not a single parolled prisoner present. But
Buffum was there and heard every word.
“It’s my turn to skirmish to-morrow night,” said he. “But with the
consent of all hands I think I will put it off until Monday night.”
“You must have some reason for wanting to do that,” said Mr. Webster,
who you will remember was the man who guided Marcy to the camp on the
night Captain Beardsley’s schooner was burned.
“I have a very good reason for it,” replied Marcy. “The prime movers in
this matter—Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin who got up the scheme, and
Beardsley who is carrying it out—are enemies of mine, and they would
rather see me forced into the army than anybody else.” And Marcy might
have added that they were after him and nobody else, and that when they
captured him the rest of the refugees would be permitted to live in
peace.
“If that is the case, you ought not to go foraging at all,” said Mr.
Webster.
“When I cast my lot with you I expected to share in all your dangers,”
said Marcy quietly. “It wouldn’t be right, but it would be cowardly for
me to remain safe in camp eating grub that others foraged at the risk of
being captured or shot, and I’ll not do it. I will do my part as I have
always tried to do, but I claim the right to bother my enemies all I can
by choosing my own time.”
“That’s nothin’ more’n fair,” observed Buffum. “I’ll go in your place
to-morrer night an’ you can go in mine on Monday.”
“All right,” said Marcy. “But don’t go near my mother’s house to-morrow.
It might be as dangerous for you as for me.”
When all the refugees reported at sundown, as the camp regulations
required them to do, Marcy’s plan for escaping capture at the hands of
the Home Guards was explained to them, and it resulted, as Tom Allison
said it would, in a complete change in the camp routine. The plan
promised to work admirably. The three men composing the new detail which
went foraging that night made their way to their homes in safety,
visited a while with their families, and returned with a supply of
provisions without having seen any signs of the enemy; but the old
detail would surely have been captured, for their houses were watched
all night long, not by Home Guards, but by Confederate veterans who had
been sent from Williamston at Beardsley’s suggestion and Shelby’s. On
the night following Mrs. Gray’s house was not only watched but searched
from cellar to garret; but that was done simply to throw Marcy off his
guard, and we are sorry to say that it had the desired effect. The
Confederate soldiers knew they would not find Marcy that night, for
Captain Beardsley told them so; and Beardsley himself had been warned by
his faithful spy, Buffum, that Marcy would not go foraging again until
Monday night. By this time all the refugees became aware that there was
someone among them who could not be trusted, and the knowledge
exasperated them almost beyond the bounds of endurance. The danger was
that they might do harm to an innocent man, for they declared that the
smallest scrap of evidence against one of their number would be enough
to hang him to the nearest tree.
“I can find that spy and will, too, if this thing goes on any longer,”
said Ben Hawkins, when he and Marcy and Mr. Webster were talking the
matter over one day.
“Then why don’t you do it?” demanded Marcy. “It has gone on long enough
already.”
“I’ll do it to-morrow night if you two will stand by me,” said Ben, and
Marcy had never heard him talk so savagely, not even when he threatened
to “twist” Tom Allison’s neck for calling him a coward.
“We’ll stand by you,” said Mr. Webster; and although he did not show so
much anger, he was just as determined that the man who was trying to
betray them into the power of the Confederates should be severely
punished. “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to pull that Tom Allison out of his bed by the neck, and say
to him that he can take his choice between givin’ me the name of that
traitor, an’ bein’ hung up to the plates of his paw’s gallery,” replied
Ben.
“That’ll be the way to do it,” said Buffum, who happened to come up in
time to overhear a portion of this conversation. In fact Buffum was
always listening. He showed so great a desire to be everywhere at once,
and to know all that was going on, that it was a wonder he was not
suspected. But perhaps he took the best course to avoid suspicion. For a
man who was known to be lacking in courage, he displayed a good deal of
nerve in carrying out the dangerous part of Mark Goodwin’s programme
that had been assigned to him.
“Will you help?” inquired Hawkins.
“Well, no; I don’t know’s I want to help, kase you all might run agin
some rebels when you’re goin’ up to Allison’s house,” replied Buffum.
“I’d a heap ruther stay in camp. I never was wuth much at fightin’, but
I can forage as much grub as the next man.”
There was another thing Buffum could do as well as the next man, but he
did not speak of it. He could slip away from camp after everybody else
was asleep or had gone out foraging, make his way through the woods to
Beardsley’s house, remain with him long enough to give the captain an
idea of what had been going on among the refugees during the day, and
return to his blanket in time to have a refreshing nap and get up with
the others; he had done it repeatedly, and no one was the wiser for it.
He slipped away that night after listening to Ben Hawkins’ threat to
hang Tom Allison to the plates of his father’s gallery, and perhaps we
shall see what came of it.
Under the new rule it was Ben’s turn to go foraging that night, and he
went prepared for a fight. He was armed with three revolvers, Marcy’s
pair besides his own, and took with him two soldier comrades who could
be depended on in any emergency. They did not separate and give the
rebels opportunity to overpower them singly, but kept together, ready to
shoot or run as circumstances might require. They were not molested for
the simple reason that the Confederates, as we have said, were watching
other houses, knowing nothing of the new regulation that was in force.
They returned with an ample supply of food, and reported that Marcy’s
plan had thrown the enemy off the trail completely.
The next day was Sunday, and Ben devoted a good portion of it to making
up for the sleep he had lost the night before, and the rest to selecting
and instructing the men that were to accompany him to Mr. Allison’s
house. There were nine of them, and with the exception of Mr. Webster
and Marcy they were all Confederate soldiers. This made it plain to
Marcy that Ben did not expect to find the traitor among the men who wore
gray jackets. They set out as soon as night fell, marching along the
road in military order, trusting to darkness to conceal their movements,
and moving at quick step, for Mr. Allison’s house was nearly eight miles
away. They had covered more than three-fourths of the distance, and Ben
was explaining to Marcy how the house was to be surrounded by a
right-and-left oblique movement, which was to begin as soon as the
little column was fairly inside Mr. Allison’s gate, when their steps
were arrested by a faint, tremulous hail which came from the bushes by
the roadside. In a second more half a dozen cocked revolvers were
pointed at the spot from which the voice sounded.
“Out of that!” commanded Ben. “Out you come with a jump.”
“Dat you, Moss’ Hawkins?” came in husky tones from the bushes.
“It’s me; but I don’t know who you are, an’ you want to be in a hurry
about showin’ yourself. One—two——”
“Hol’—hol’ on, if you please, sah. Ise comin’,” answered the voice, and
the next minute a badly frightened black man showed himself. “Say, Moss’
Hawkins,” he continued, “whar’s you all gwine?”
“I don’t know as that is any of your business,” answered Ben.
“Dat I knows mighty well,” the darky hastened to say. “Black ones aint
got no truck wid white folkses business; but you all don’t want to go
nigher to Mistah Allison’s. Da’s a whole passel rebels up da’. I done
see ’em.”
“What are they doin’ up there?” inquired Ben, who was very much
surprised to hear it.
The black man replied that they were not doing anything in particular
the last time he saw them, only just loitering about as if they were
waiting for something or somebody. They hadn’t come to the house by the
road, but through the fields and out of the woods; and the care they
showed to keep out of sight of anyone who might chance to ride along the
highway, taken in connection with the fact that both Beardsley and
Shelby had been there talking to them, and had afterward left by the way
of a narrow lane that led to a piece of thick timber at the rear of the
plantation—all these things made the darkies believe that the rebels
were there for no good purpose, and so some of their number had left the
quarter as soon as it grew dark, to warn any Union people they might
meet to keep away from Mr. Allison’s house.
“Well, boy, you’ve done us a favor,” said Ben, when the darky ceased
speaking, “and if I had a quarter in good money I would give it to you.
But there’s a bill of some sort in rebel money. It’s too dark to see the
size of it, but mebbe it will get you half a plug of tobacco. How many
rebs are there in the party?”
“Sarvant, sah. Thank you kindly, sah,” said the black boy, as he took
the bill. “Da’s more’n twenty of ’em in de congregation, an’ all ole
soldiers. A mighty rough-lookin’ set dey is too.”
“That’s the way all rebs look,” said Ben. “I know, for I have been one
of ’em. What do you s’pose brought the soldiers there?”
The darky replied that he couldn’t make out why they came to the house;
but he knew that the officer in command had said something to Tom, in
the presence of his father and mother, that threw them all into a state
of great agitation. Tom especially was terribly frightened, and wanted
to ride over and pass the night with Mark Goodwin; but his father
wouldn’t let him go for fear something would happen to him on the road.
“Well, Timothy——” began Ben.
“Jake, if you please, sah,” corrected the negro.
“Well, Jake, if you keep still about meetin’ us nobody will ever hear of
it. Off you go, now. The jig’s up, boys, an’ we might as well strike for
camp.”