“Who are you?” demanded one of the rebel soldiers, when they had duly possessed his body, which, however, was not a very chivalrous adventure, for the prisoner was unarmed, his gun having been thrown away by the friendly Zouave, after he had so terribly avenged his murdered companion.

“I’m a soldier,” replied Tom, greatly perplexed by the trials of his difficult situation.

As yet he did not know whether he had fallen into the hands of friend or foe, for the night was cloudy and dark, and he could not see what uniform the pickets wore.

“What do you belong to?” demanded the spokesman of the picket trio.

“I belong to the army,” answered Tom, with admirable simplicity.

Our soldier boy, as the reader already knows, had been well “brought up.”  He had been taught to tell the truth at all times; and he did so on the present occasion, very much to the confusion, no doubt, of the rebel soldiers, who had not been brought up under the droppings of the sanctuary in a New England village.

“B’long to the army—­do you?” repeated Secesh, who must have thought Tom a very candid person.

“Yes, sir, I belong to the army,” added the prisoner.

“I s’pose you won’t mind telling us what army you belong to, ’cause it mought make a difference in our calculations,” added the spokesman.

Tom did not know but that it might make some difference in his calculations, and for this reason he was exceedingly unwilling to commit himself before he ascertained upon which side his questioners belonged.

“Can you tell me where I am?” asked Tom, resolved to use a little strategy in obtaining the desired information.

“May be I can,” replied the picket.

“Will you do so?”

“Sartin, stranger—­you are in the woods,” added Secesh; whereat his companions indulged in a wholesome chuckle, which assured Tom that they were human, and his hopes rose accordingly.

“Thank you,” replied Tom, with infinite good nature.

“You say you belong to the army, and I say you are in the woods,” said the soldier, repeating the double postulate, so that the essence of the joke should by no possibility fail to penetrate the cerebellum of his auditor.

Tom was perfectly willing to acknowledge that he was in the woods, both actually and metaphorically, and he was very much disturbed to know how he should get out of the woods—­a problem which has puzzled wiser heads than his, even in less perplexing emergencies.  He was fearful that, if he declared himself to be a Union soldier, he should share the fate of others whom he had seen coolly bayoneted on that eventful day.

“Now, stranger, s’pose you tell me what army you b’long to; then I can tell you where you are,” continued the soldier.

“What do you belong to?” asked Tom, though he did not put the question very confidently.

“I belong to the army;” and the two other pickets honored the reply with another chuckle.  “You can’t fool old Alabammy.”