University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

During the rest of the day Dora kept a constant watch
upon the Kentuckian, for, in spite of his promises, she
felt an uneasy consciousness that all was not as quiet
with him as he wished her to believe.

When her hour of liberty in the afternoon arrived, she
sought Mr. Brown, who was reading in his tent, and told
him that she feared Merlin had some plan in his mind
with regard to the prisoner whose voice had moved him
so strangely, and begged him to go into the hospital before
night and question him. Mr. Brown promised to do
so, and then, seeing that Dora looked pale and tired, he
bade her put on her cloak and come to walk with him.

Dora gladly obeyed, and, as they strolled along the
mountain side, Mr. Brown began to talk with her of matters
that soon carried her beyond the present weariness.
Speaking first of the traces of fortification that the present
war will leave all over the land, to be the wonder of
coming generations, he went back to the centuries of the
past, and told how in Ohio and all over the West are to
be found traces of battles mightier than ours, of fortifications
that might include a dozen of our own, of relics left

behind in the disappearance of a mighty people, whose
grand works survive, when even tradition holds no echo
of the workers' name or race.

Mr. Brown, who was a determined antiquary, grew
enthusiastic as he talked, and Dora listened with more
avidity to this marvellous, true story than she had to the
romantic legends of Arthur and his knights.

Both teacher and pupil became so engrossed as quite
to forget where they were, and the danger of straying far
from camp, when, as they paused a moment to look at
the western sky, where the last glory of the sunset was
fading away, the sharp crack of a rifle rung through the
stillness, and a little puff of smoke rose lazily from a
dense thicket some distance below them in the valley.
The sharp whistle of the ball cut the air, at the same
instant, so close to the chaplain's head, that he felt the
slight current made by its motion.

“What — O, who is that?” cried Dora, as a dark
figure seemed to spring out of the earth a little distance
from her side, and bound forward to the thicket. “Why,
it's Picter — isn't it?” added she, as, even in the brief
glance she caught of the figure, she noticed the peculiar
motion of the limbs.

“Was it? But what is going on now? Stay here,
Dora, or, rather, crouch behind this stump, and keep
close, while I go to see — ”

“But you haven't any gun, or anything!” cried Dora,
holding the chaplain fast.

“I am armed; I have a pistol. Let me go, child!
You must, really. Keep yourself hidden.”

As Mr. Brown spoke, he released himself from Dora's
grasp, and, drawing a pistol from an inside pocket,
bounded down the hill.

Without a moment's hesitation the child followed, and
arrived at the thicket just as Mr. Brown stooped over a
writhing mass of matter, which might, so far as eyes
were to be trusted, have been two bears struggling in a
death hug. Human voices, however, were to be heard
in panting exclamations, oaths, and menaces, but the
only articulate sounds were in Picter's gruff tones.

“Take dat, den!” panted he, raising high above his
head a knife whose blade gleamed faintly in the twilight.
But the blow never fell, for, quick as thought, his unseen
adversary, releasing his own right hand from the negro's
grasp, dashed it so heavily into his face as to prostrate
him to the ground, while at the same moment he leaped
to his feet, and darted into the forest, pursued by a ball
from the chaplain's pistol.

Picter slowly rose to his feet, wiping from his eyes the
blood that trickled into them from a cut upon his forehead.

“De ole cuss,” muttered he, “knockin' open a pusson's
head as ef 'twor a mushmillion! Wait till I cotch
ye again, mas'r, dat's all!”

“Who was it, Picter? Did you know him?” asked
Dora, breathlessly, while the chaplain inquired, —

“How came you out here, Picter, so providentially?”

“O, de Lor', mas'r an' missy, how's I gwine to tell
eberyting all to once, an' all de extry stars dat was lef'
over arter de sky was full, a dancin' 'fore my eyes, an' in
an' out ob my pore ole head dis bressed minute?” asked
Picter, with some asperity, as he reseated himself upon
the ground.

“Poor Uncle Pic! It is too bad. Come up to the
hospital as quick as you can, and I will do up your hurt.
Is there any other except this on your forehead?”

“Dunno, missy. Don' you bodder youse'f 'bout de
ole nigger. He noffin' but ole fool arter all.”

“No, you're not, Picter, and you don't believe it yourself,”
said Dora, laughing. “But come, let us go
home.”

“Yes, it is quite time. Our friend may return at any
moment, and his next aim may be truer,” said Mr.
Brown, peering sharply into the forest beyond where
they were standing.

“He tried to shoot you — didn't he?” asked Dora,
anxiously.

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the chaplain, coolly.

“Course he did. Didn' want fer touch missy,” muttered
Picter, who was now following them up the hill.

“But how came you down here all ready to defend
us?” asked Mr. Brown, soothingly; for he had learned to
understand the poor fellow's crabbed jealousy of all his

young mistress's new friends, and liked him the better
for it.

“Wasn' tryin' to 'fend no one but lilly missy,” growled
Picter. “I seed her a trabellin' off down here long
wid parson, an' t'out parson had lef' he gun to home:
didn' know he got lilly gun in the pocket. Den I knowed
de rebs kep' a comin' roun' fer spy out what we's a doin',
an' t'out like 'nough dey pick up missy an' de parson, an'
carry dey off 'fore dey had time fer holler. So I took
um knife, an' comed along arter 'em. Didn' come in
sight, fer missy 'ouldn't want fer talk wid stupid ole nigger
w'en she got buckra gen'leman to talk wid. So de
mis'able ole feller he creep an' crawl long jes' like de
pore dog arter he mas'r gib him lickin' an' tell he go
'long home. An w'en missy set down on de log, an'
parson 'tan' an' talk 'fore her, den dis nigger lay 'till an'
look at dem, till de gun go `crack' down here in de
brush, an' de ball go singin' up clost to missy head.
Tou't fust 'twas her dey was shootin' at, but now I
knows it wasn'.”

“How do you know, Picter?” asked Mr. Brown,
stopping, and looking earnestly at him.

“Can't tell, mas'r parson. On'y I reckon 'twor you,
an' not missy, dey wanted,” said the negro, doggedly.

Arrived at the camp, Mr. Brown went to speak to
Merlin, as Dora had requested; and she insisted upon
Picter's coming with her into the outer hospital tent, now

left unoccupied by patients, while she sought from the
surgeon some plaster and a bandage to dress his wound.

The negro reluctantly obeyed, and Dora, after bathing
the cut, and applying the plaster, bandaged it so neatly
and so tenderly, that, as the patient emphatically declared,
it was “better dan a whole head.”

“That's nice. Now, Pic, you had better go to bed,
and try to sleep. I dare say your head aches — doesn't
it?” asked the little nurse, kindly.

“Not half so bad as it had oughter,” replied Pic, penitently.
“'Clare to mas'r, Missy Dora, it 'nough ter
make a hedgehog 'shamed ob hese'f, ter see how good
you is ter dis mis'able ole cross-grain nigger. W'y
doesn' you up an tell him. `You ole fool, does you s'pec a
young madam like me is gwine to 'sociate wid a nigger?
I's got oder fish a fryin' in my pan dese times.' But,
'stead o' dat, you's jest as pleasant an' as pooty to him
now, as you was dem days in de cave, an' in de ole times
w'en he use to fix up swings an' seesaws in de barn, fer
you an' mas'r Tom.”

“And I am just as fond of you, Picter,” said Dora,
eagerly. “And I wouldn't say any such thing as you
just told me to, for anything. Of course my time is
very much taken up now, and you wouldn't want me to
come and sit round in the kitchen with the men.”

“Course I shouldn', honey. Wouldn' hab it no way.”

“Well, then, you must come and see me, Pic; and I

wish you would make it a rule to come every afternoon
at three o'clock, and stay a few minutes with me before
I go to Mr. Brown.”

“T'ank you, missy. S'pecs dat parson mons'ous wise
gen'l'man — isn't he?” asked Pic, with a little return of
jealous envy.

“O, yes. He is the wisest and the best person I ever
knew or thought of. You ought to hear him talk about
the Bible and heaven, and those things. Why don't you
ask him to tell you about it Pic? He would in a
minute.”

“He wouldn' want 'pend he time on ole fool like dis
yer,” grumbled Pic.

“He wouldn't call you that, and you wouldn't feel so,
after you had talked with him.”

“Should like 'o talk wid him 'bout dem tings fus' rate,
ef he'd hab de patience,” said Pic, doubtfully.

“O, he is never out of patience, or out of temper.
I've tried him awfully, I'm so ignorant, and he's always
just so good.”

“S'pecs you an' I's diff'ent sort o' scholars, missy,”
said Pic, with a short laugh; “but I'll try to cotch de
parson w'en he'm not so busy, an' ax him —”

“What will you ask him? There's no time like the
present,” said a sonorous voice behind them; and Mr.
Brown smilingly entered the tent.

“O Lor'! Dey say dat de ole gen'l'man is alluz near

when you's a talkin' 'bout him,” blurted out Pic, and
then hastily added, —

“Ax you pardon, fer sure, mas'r; I didn' mean ter
call you de debil.”

“It isn't a wise thing to talk much about that individual,
Picter. You never can tell how near he may be
to you,” said the chaplain, with a sort of merry gravity.
“But now you had better come with me, and ask me
whatever it was you intended to. Dora, I advise you to
go to your own quarters now, and get some sleep.”

“I jes' want fer tell missy somefin', mas'r, and den I
come right 'long,” said Picter, hesitatingly.

“Very well. I will wait a moment outside. Good
night, my child.”

“Good night, sir.”

Picter waited until the curtain had fallen behind the
chaplain, and then, approaching close to Dora, he whispered,
—

“Dat ar' feller in de brush wor Dick Wilson, if dis
chile knows anything.”

“What, my cousin, Dick?”

“Yis, missy. Night, missy

Before Dora could reply, the negro was gone.