“If I had any I’d offer it to you, but I never chew.”

The man sighed.

“Well, mebbe it’s a bad habit,” he said, “but it’s powerful grippin’.  I’d give a heap for a good twist of old Kentucky.  Now we’re goin’ to search you an’ it ain’t wuth while to resist, ’cause we’ve got you where we want you, as the dog said to the ’coon when he took him by the throat.  We’re lookin’ for letters an’ dispatches, ’cause we’re shore you come from Buell, but if we should run across any terbacker we’ll have to he’p ourselves to it.  We ain’t no robbers, ’cause in times like these it ain’t no robbery to take terbacker.”

Dick noticed that while they talked one of the men never ceased to cover him with a rifle.  They were good-humored and kindly, but he knew they would not relax an inch from their duty.

“All right,” he said, “go ahead.  I’ll give you a good legal title to everything you may find.”

He knew that the letter was lying in the bushes within ten feet of them and he had a strong temptation to look in that direction and see if it were as securely hidden as he had thought, but he resisted the impulse.

Two of the men searched him rapidly and dexterously, and much to their disappointment found no dispatch.

“You ain’t got any writin’ on you, that’s shore,” said the spokesman.  “I’d expected to find a paper, an’ I had a lingerin’ hope, too, that we might find a little terbacker on you ’spite of what you said.”

“You don’t think I’d lie about the tobacco, would you?”

“Sonny, it ain’t no lyin’ in a big war to say you ain’t got no terbacker, when them that’s achin’ for it are standin’ by, ready to grab it.  If you had a big diamond hid about you, an’ a robber was to ask you if you had it, you’d tell him no, of course.”

“I think,” said Dick, “that you must be from Kentucky.  You’ve got our accent.”

“I shorely am, an’ I’m a longer way from it than I like.  I noticed from the first that you talked like me, which is powerful flatterin’ to you.  Ain’t you one of my brethren that the evil witches have made take up with the Yankees?”

“I’m from the same state,” replied Dick, who saw no reason to conceal his identity.  “My name is Richard Mason, and I’m an aide on the staff of Colonel Arthur Winchester, who commands a Kentucky regiment in General Grant’s army.”

“I’ve heard of Colonel Winchester.  The same that got a part of his regiment cut up so bad by Forrest.”

“Yes, we did get cut up.  I was there,” confessed Dick a little reluctantly.

“Don’t feel bad about it.  It’s likely to happen to any of you when Forrest is around.  Now, since you’ve introduced yourself so nice I’ll introduce myself.  I’m Sergeant Robertson, in the Orphan Brigade.  It’s a Kentucky brigade, an’ it gets its nickname ’cause it’s made up of boys so young that they call me gran’pa, though I’m only forty-four.  These other three are Bridge, Perkins, and Connor, just plain privates.”