CHAPTER III.
THE BOUNTY-JUMPER.
When Lafe Hornbeck looked into the countenance of the strange man whoappeared thus unexpectedly before him in the deserted breastwork, itneeded no second glance to tell him that he had to deal with ascoundrel. A threatening and formidable scoundrel he seemed, too, withhis heavy, slouching shoulders, his long arms ending in huge, hairyhands, and the surly scowl on his low-browed, frowzy face.
He wore the dark-blue jacket and light-blue trousers of the Federalinfantry, and their relative newness showed that he was a freshrecruit. His badge was the Maltese cross of the Fifth Corps, and itscolor, red, indicated the First Division. This was the corps anddivision of Boyce's brigade.
Even in the first minute of surprised scrutiny of the fellow Lafe foundhimself thinking that he probably belonged to that Ohio regiment whichhe had seen bringing up the rear of the line forming for battle.
"Drop it, I say!" the man repeated, harshly.
Lafe drew his hand from the haversack slowly and reluctantly.
"There's enough more of 'em here," he protested, nodding at the pile inthe corner of the earthwork. "I haven't had a mouthful since beforesunrise, and I'm hungry."
"Where'd you come from, anyway, and what business have you got here?"the other demanded, with an oath and a forward step.
"I'm Fifth Corps, same as you are," replied Lafe, making an effort tokeep his voice bold and firm, "and I came here by tumbling head overheels down that hill there, right spang from top to bottom." He tookcourage from the indecision apparent in the man's eyes to add, "Andthat's why I'm going to have something to eat."
The stranger gave a grunt, which, bad-tempered though it was, did notseem to forbid the action, and Lafe drew forth the bread again. It wasdry and tasteless enough, but he almost forgot to look at his unwelcomecompanion in the satisfaction which he had in gulping down the food.
The man lounged over to the pile of haversacks, muskets, and clothing,and seemed to be trying to make out whether anything was missing. Hegrunted again, and turned to Lafe just as the last crust wasdisappearing.
"You're a drummer, ain't you?" he said roughly. "Where do you belong?"
Lafe held up his hand to signify that his mouth was too full to talk."Boyce's brigade," he explained, after a little.
"That ain't what I asked. What's your regiment?"
"Haven't got any regiment," replied Lafe. "I'm in the brigade band."
"Oh!" growled the man, and turned on his heel. The information seemedto relieve his mind, for when he had taken a few loitering steps aboutthe enclosure, and confronted Lafe again, his tone was lessquarrelsome. "Left the hospital camp up there, eh?" he asked, with asidelong nod of his head toward the top of the hill.
"Well, yes--and no," responded the boy. "It was there when I left it,but it ain't there now. Or rather, it _is_ there, but _we_ ain'tthere."
"What are you driving at?" the man demanded, once more in a roughervoice.
"The rebs have gobbled it," said Lafe. "Our folks were skedaddling andthe rebs were coming in the last I saw."
The man gave a low whistle of surprise and interest. He began walkingabout again, bending his ugly brows in thought meanwhile. From time totime he paused to ask other questions, as to which way the people ofthe brigade camp had fled, how large was the force which had capturedthe camp, and the like.
The news evidently impressed him a good deal. Lafe got the idea thatsomehow it changed his plans. What were these plans? the boy wondered.The whole thing was very hard to make out. More than once he had had itin mind to say that he had left another member of the band, a very nicefellow indeed, up on the side-hill above them, who must also be hungry,and to suggest that he should call him down.
But every time, when this rose to his tongue, a glance at the evil faceof the man restrained him. He could not but remember what Foldeen hadhinted, that there was some "deviltry" going on down below here. Whatwas it?
"There must have been some pretty tough fighting right here," heventured to remark, after a while.
"You bet there was!" the other assented. He seemed not averse to alittle talk, though his mind was still on other things.
"I don't quite figure it out," the boy went on, cautiously. "Of course,wrastling round in the woods like this, you can't make head nor tail ofhow things go, or who's on top, or where--but how does it stand--righthere, I mean? We're in our own lines here, ain't we?"
The stranger fixed a long, inquiring glance upon the boy's face. Lafereturned the gaze with all the calmness he could muster. He could nothelp feeling that there was a good deal of stupidity in the stare underwhich he bore up. The man was not quick-minded; that was clear enough.But it was also plain that he was both a stubborn and a brutalcreature.
"Yes," he growled, after he had stared Lafe out of countenance, "yes,these are our own lines."
The phrase seemed to tickle his fancy, for something like the beginningof a grin stirred on the stubbly surface about his mouth. "Yes--our ownlines," he repeated. How strange it was! All at once, like a flash,Lafe remembered having seen this man before. That slow, sulky waveringof a grimace on his lips betrayed him. Swiftly pursuing the clue, theboy reconstructed in his mind a scene in which this man had played thechief part.
It must have been in the early part of the previous December--justafter the army went into winter quarters behind the line of the Orangerailroad, cooped up in its earth-huts all the way from Culpeper CourtHouse to Brandy Station. Lafe had gone over on leave one afternoon tothe corps headquarters--it must have been of a Thursday, because therewas to be a military execution the next day, and these were alwaysfixed for Friday.
The army was then receiving almost weekly large batches of rawrecruits, sent from the big cities, some the product of the draft,others forwarded by the enlistment bureaus. Among these new-comers weremany good citizens and patriots; but there were also a great manycowards and a considerable number of scoundrels who made a business ofenlisting to get the bounty, deserting as soon as they could, andenlisting again from some other point.
To prevent wholesale desertions, both of the cowards and the"bounty-jumpers," the utmost vigilance was needed. Their best chance torun away was offered by picket duty, when they found themselves postedout in comparative solitude, in the dark, on the very outskirts of thearmy line.
To checkmate this, a cordon of cavalry had to be drawn still fartherout than the pickets--cavalry-men who slept all day, and at nightpatrolled the uttermost confines of the great camp, watching with alltheir eyes and ears, ready on the instant to clap spurs and ride downany skulking wretch who could be discovered attempting his escape.
Even in the teeth of this precaution, the attempts were continuallymade, and it was the rarest event for a Friday to pass without thespectacle of summary punishment being meted out to some captureddeserter on the corps' shooting-ground. Often there were more than oneof these victims to martial law.
Lafe now remembered how, with a boy's curiosity, he had prowled aboutthe provost marshal's guard quarters, fascinated by the idea thatinside the log shanty, where the two sentinels with fixed bayonetswalked constantly up and down, there were men condemned to be shot atsix the following morning.
Standing around, and gossiping amiably with these sentinels, who sharedthe common feeling of the army in making pets of the drummer-boys, hehad managed at last to get a glimpse at one of these fated prisoners.
A face had appeared at the little window, square-cut in the logs. Itwas a bad, unkempt face, with a reddish stubble of beard on jaws andcheek. There may have been some rough jest passed by the otherprisoners inside the hut, for as the boy watched this face, a grim,mean sort of smile flickered momentarily over it.
Then the face itself disappeared, and left the boy marvelling that aman could grin in presence of the fact that he was to be shot on themorrow.
The smile, and the countenance it played upon for that instant of time,burned themselves into his memory. Lafe racked his brain now for somerecollectio
n of having heard that these particular prisoners werereprieved, or had succeeded in escaping from their log jail. His memorywas a blank on the subject. Yet he felt sure that the face he had seenat that window was the identical face he now saw before him.
For the life of him, he could not resist the temptation to venture uponthis dangerous topic.
"You're one of the new regiments brought over to us from the old FirstCorps, ain't you?" he asked, with an effort at an ingratiating tone.
The man nodded his head in indifferent assent. He seemed to belistening intently to the sounds of battle in the air. These werereduced now to faint, far-away cracklings of rifle-firing, as if onlydistant sharpshooters were engaged.
"Suppose this is about the first time you've been under fire, then,"Lafe remarked. He added, with a bragging air: "I was all through thePayne's Farm and Mine Run racket last November! That was hot enough, Itell you!"
The man made that inarticulate grunt of contempt which we try to conveyby the word humph! "So was I," he growled, "and plenty more fightsworse than them."
"Oh, got your discharge and 'listed again?" commented the boy.
Again the stranger turned upon him that steady, dull stare ofinquiry--like the gaze of a vicious ox. He seemed satisfied at lengthwith the artlessness of Lafe's countenance, but did not trouble himselfto answer his suggestion.
"What do you figure on doin' with yourself?" he abruptly asked the boy,after a pause.
"How do I know?" retorted Lafe. "I'd try and join brigade headquarters,if I knew where they were, but I don't. The next best thing is to tryand find some other brigade's headquarters. It's all clear enoughoutside here now. I guess I'll take some bread with me, and make abreak through the woods down the run there. I'll fetch up somewhere,all right."
He bent over the pile of knapsacks, as if to pick one of them up.
"No," the man called out. "Leave 'em alone! You can't take no more ofthem rations, and you can't go down the run. You can't go anywhere."
Lafe straightened himself. "Why not?" he asked, with an assumption ofboldness.
"Because you can't," the other retorted curtly.
"What can I do, then?" Lafe inquired defiantly.
The man looked him over. "You can turn up your toes to the daisies inabout another minute, if you don't mind your own business. That's whatyou can do," he remarked, with an ugly frown.
"What's the use of talking that way?" said Lafe. "I haven't done youany harm, have I?"
"No--and you ain't going to, either," was the reply.
The stranger, as he spoke, took a two-barrelled pistol from his insidejacket-pocket. It was a beautiful weapon, ornamented with a good dealof chased silver. Lafe had seen pistols like this before, in thepossession of officers, and knew that they were called Derringers.Private soldiers were not likely to carry weapons of that sort.
He was sure that this man must have stolen the pistol, and theconviction did not assist Lafe to calmness, as he observed the man pushone of the hammers back with his thumb to full-cock. It is as bad to beshot by stolen firearms as by those which have been bought and paidfor.
The stranger drew from another pocket a gold watch, with a long loop ofbroad black silk braid hanging from its ring. He held it in the palm ofhis free hand, and glanced at its open face.
"It must be getting along toward noon," Lafe had the temerity toremark. There were cold shivers through his veins, but he managed tokeep his tongue steady. If "cheek" could not help him, nothing could.
"About as nigh noon as you're ever likely to git," said the other,making a pretence of again consulting the watch.
Instinct told the lad with a flashlight swiftness that this looking atthe watch was buncombe. Men who really meant to kill did not paradetimepieces like that.
"I haven't got anything on me that would be of any use to you," hesaid, with an immense effort at unconcern. "Even if I had, you wouldn'tneed a gun to take it away from me."
"You've got a mouth on you," said the man, eying him, "and it'll be ofuse to me to shut it up."
He lifted the pistol as he spoke, and Lafe instinctively closed hiseyes, with a confused rush of thoughts in which he seemed to see hisold mother sitting in the garden with the Book on her knees, and alsothe young Ohio officer, who somehow came in among the tall flowersbeside her, and these flowers themselves were the regimental flagswhich the color-sergeant was unfurling.
Then, as nothing happened, the boy opened his eyes again, and foundhimself able to look into the two black disks of the Derringer's muzzlewithout flinching.
He could even look beyond the muzzle, as the barrels sloped downwardtoward him, and he now saw distinctly that the two little upright steelnipples bore no caps. The discovery made him annoyed at his owncowardice. It was easier now to be bold.
"What's your idea, anyway?" he asked the man, with an added effronteryin his tone. "If you'd been going to shoot, you'd have done it longago. This thing doesn't scare me at all, and I don't see how it doesyou any good. What are you getting at, anyhow?"
"I'd as soon shoot you as look at you!" the other declared with angryemphasis, but lowering the weapon.
"Yes, but seeing you ain't going to shoot, what are you going to do?"Lafe put in.
The ruffian eyed him again. "If I agree not to hurt you, will you dowhat I tell you?" he demanded.
"Well, maybe I will," replied the boy. His spirits rose as his contemptfor this slow and shilly-shallying sort of scoundrel increased. "Whatis it you want me to do?"
"I want you to help me carry some things I've got together over there,on the other side of the creek. Well go over now, and bring 'em backhere."
"I'll take another bite of bread, first," it occurred to the boy tosay. He lifted a haversack, and shoved in one hand to burrow among itscontents, while with his foot, as if by accident, he pushed one of themuskets lengthwise so that he might grab it the more readily ifoccasion required.
Biting in leisurely fashion on the new crust he had found, Lafe feltemboldened to make the conversation personal.
"That's a mighty fine watch you've got there," he remarked, affably. "Isuppose it went with the pistol--sort o' thrown in, like."
The man put the watch back into his trousers pocket. He seemed for amoment disposed to annoyance. Then the furtive, mean grin curled overthe lower part of his face. "Yes--it was thrown in," he replied, almostwith a chuckle. "Come on," he added. "You can chew that bread as you goalong."
"But what am I to get?" the boy queried, slowly turning the crust overto select a place for the next bite. "Do I come in for any watches andsilver-mounted Derringers, too?"
"You jest help me for all you're worth," replied the man, after amoment's pause, "and I'll see to it you git something worth yourwhile."
"It's got to be something pretty good," said Lafe, meditatively chewingon the hard bread. "A fellow can't be expected to risk the chance ofbeing shot for nothing."
"There ain't no danger of gittin' shot," the other replied.
"Well, hung, then," Lafe said impudently.
"What's that you say?" the man growled, with reawakened suspicion. "Whosaid anything about hangin'? What kind o' nonsense are you talkin',anyway?"
It might be a desperately foolish thing to do, but Lafe could not holdhimself from doing it--and for that matter didn't try.
LAFE AND THE BOUNTY-JUMPER.]
"Why, they hang men caught robbing the dead on battle-fields, don'tthey--specially when they're bounty-jumpers to begin with?"
He had called this out as swiftly as he could, holding himself inreadiness as he spoke, and now he pounced downward, and clutching themusket, lifted it for defence.
The man sprang forward with a quicker motion than the boy had countedupon, and before Lafe had got erect he felt the stifling grasp of big,hard fingers around his throat.