as hinted that their evidence was not as good as a black
man's.

"Don't get huffy," said the smart man before alluded to. "We haven't
played our best card yet. One of you two was riding a roan colt when you
came to Merrick's, and there aint no such horse in Truman's stable."

"Did Merrick's nigger tell you that?" asked Tom.

His self-control was surprising. He sat up in his chair and boldly faced
his questioner, while Rodney, wishing that the floor might open and let
him down into the cellar, told himself more than once that he never
would hear the last of that roan colt the longest day he lived.

"No matter who told us," was the reply. "We know it to be a fact. The
roan was taken into Merrick's woods, and he wasn't brought out this
morning. Did you make a trade with Merrick, or with some of Hobson's
friends?"

"If you want to know you had better ask them," answered Tom.

"That's what we intend to do; and we intend, further, that you shall
stay with us till we get to the bottom of this thing. There is something
about you that isn't just right and we mean to find out what it is."

"I can tell you all about that horse," Rodney interposed.

"It isn't worth while for you to waste your breath, and besides this is
a dangerous place to stay, with Price's men scouting around through the
neighborhood," said the leader, who now showed a disposition to resume
the management of affairs. "It won't take more than two or three days to
ride back to Merrick's and from there to Pilot Knob, and straighten
everything out in good shape."

"But we are in a hurry. We don't want to go back," exclaimed Tom; and it
was plain to every one in the room that the bare proposition frightened
him.

"I don't suppose you do want to go back," said the leader, in a
significant tone, "but we can't help that. It's time you Secesh were
taught that you can't go prowling about through the country imposing
upon Union men whenever you feel like it. We have stood enough from such
as you, and more than we ever will again, and I believe we should be
justified in dealing with you here and now. As for you," he added,
shaking his fist in Tom's face and fairly hissing out the words, "you
are no more the man you claim to be than I am. You're traitors, the pair
of you."

The man was working himself into a passion, and it behooved the boys to
be careful what they said. He was in the right mood to do something
desperate, for when he ceased speaking and stepped