The man shook his head.
“Seein’ will be believin’,” he said, “an’ as I ain’t seein’ I ain’t believin’.”
Dick with a friendly good night went out. Grant, the persistent, was still at work. His cannon flared on the dark horizon and the shells crashed in Vicksburg. Scarcely any portion of the town was safe. Now and then a house was smashed in and often the shells found victims.
The town was full of terror and confusion. Many of the rich planters had come there with their families for refuge. Women and children hid from the terrible fire, and the civilians already had begun to burrow. Caves had been dug deep into the sides of the ravines and hundreds found in them a rude but safe shelter.
Dick now found that his plans were going wrong. He could wander about almost at will and to any one to whom he spoke he still claimed to be a Tennesseean, but he knew that it could not last forever. Sooner or later, some officer would question him closely, and then his tale would be too thin for truth.
Unable to make a way toward the river, he returned to the slopes and ravines, where they were digging the caves, and then fortune which had been smiling upon him turned its face the other way. A small man in butternut and an enormous felt hat passed near. He did not see Dick, but his very presence gave the lad a shiver. He believed afterward that before he saw him he had felt the proximity of Slade.
The man, carrying a rifle, was hurrying toward the center of the town, and Dick, after one long look, hurried at equal speed the other way. He knew that Slade, if he saw him, would recognize him at once. Dusk and a muddy uniform would not protect him.
It was his idea now to go down through the ravines and make another trial toward the South. He saw ahead of him a line of intrenchments, which he was resolved to pass in some fashion, but the face of fortune was still away from him. The unknown officers who at any time might ask too many questions appeared.
A captain, a sunbrowned, alert man, stopped him at the edge of the bushes which clothed the slopes of the ravine.
“Your regiment?” he asked sharply.
“Tennessee regiment, sir,” replied Dick, afraid to mention any number, since this officer might be a Tennesseean himself, and would want further identification. But the man was not to be put off-Dick judged from his uniform that he was a colonel-and demanded sharply his regiment’s number and his business.
The lad mumbled something under his breath, hopeful that he would pass on, but the officer stepped forward, looked at him closely and then suddenly turned back the collar of his army jacket, disclosing a bit of the under side yet blue.
“Thunderation, a Yankee spy!” he exclaimed.
Dick always believed that his life was due to a sudden and violent impulse, or rather a convulsive jerk, because he had no time to think. He threw off the officer’s hand, dashed his fist into his face, and, without waiting to see the effect, ran headlong among the bushes down the side of the ravine. He heard a shouting behind him, the reports of several shots, the rapid tread of feet, and he knew that the man-hunt was on.
He had all the instincts of the hunted to seek cover, and the night was his friend. But few lights glimmered in that portion of Vicksburg, and in many parts of the ravine the bushes were thick. He darted down the slope at great speed, then turned and ran along its side, still keeping well under cover. Where the shadows were darkest and the bushes thickest he paused panting.
He heard his pursuers calling to one another, and he also heard the excited voices of people in the ravine. The civilians had been aroused by the shots so close by and he thought the confusion would help him. He stood in the deep shadow, his breath gradually growing easier, and then he started down the ravine, coming to a little path that led along the side of the slope. He noticed a dark opening, and as the voices of pursuers were now coming nearer, he popped into it, trusting to blind luck.