t hear
at church, a kinder blind idee popped in my head, an' so I tuck Cephas
up behind me, an' fetched him here."

"Sit on the sofa, Cephas. Have a chair, William, and tell us about your
blind idea."

"Ef you'll promise not to laugh," Mr. Sanders stipulated. "You know Mrs.
Ab's sayin' that ef the old sow knowed she was swallerin' a tree ev'ry
time she crunched an acorn, she'd grunt a heap louder'n she does: well,
I know what I'm fixin' for to swaller, and you won't hear much loud
gruntin' from me."

"Well, we are ready to hear from you," said Meriwether Clopton.
Whereupon, Mr. Sanders threw his head back and laughed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

_Mr. Sanders's Riddle_

"I tell you how it is," said Mr. Sanders: "The riddle is how to git a
message to Gabriel; I could git the Captain thar to take it, but the
Captain will have as much as he can attend to, an' for that matter, so
have I. Wi' this riddle I'm overcrapped. Sence I left here, I've gone
over the whole matter in my mind, ef you can call it a mind. I could go
down thar myself, an' I'd be glad to, but could I git to have a private
talk wi' Gabriel? I reckon not."

The remark was really interrogative, and was addressed to Captain
Falconer, who made a prompt reply--"I hardly think the scheme would
work. My impression is that orders have been issued from Atlanta for
these young men to be isolated. If that is so they can hold
communication with no one but the sentinel on duty, or the officer who
has charge of them. They are to be treated as felons, though nothing has
been proved against them. I am not sure, but I think that is the
programme."

"That is about what I thought," said Mr. Sanders, "an' that's what I
told Cephas here. When I was fetchin' my horse, Cephas, he comes up, an'
he says, 'Mr. Sanders, have you heard from Gabriel?' an' I says, 'No,
Cephas, we ain't had time for to git a word from 'em.' An' then he went
on to say, Cephas did, that he'd like mighty well to see Gabriel. I told
him that maybe we could fix it up so as he could see Gabriel. You can't
imagine how holp up the little chap was. To see him then, an' see him
now, you'd think it was another boy."

Captain Falconer looked at Cephas, and could see no guile. On the
contrary, he saw a freckled lad who appeared to be about ten years old;
he was really nearly fourteen. Cephas was so ugly that he was ugly when
he laughed, as he was doing now; but there was something about him that
attract