I.

“Jack and Jake.” This is what they used to be called. Their names were always coupled together. Wherever you saw one, you were very apt to see the other--Jack, slender, with yellow hair, big gray eyes, and spirited look; and Jake, thick-set and brown, close to him, like his shadow, with his shining skin and white teeth. They were always in sight somewhere; it might be running about the yard or far down on the plantation, or it might be climbing trees to look into birds’ nests--which they were forbidden to trouble--or wading in the creek, riding in the carts or wagons about the fields, or following the furrow, waiting a chance to ride a plough-horse home.

Jake belonged to Jack. He had been given to him by his old master, Jack’s grandfather, when Jack was only a few years old, and from that time the two boys were rarely separated, except at night.

Jake was a little larger than Jack, as he was somewhat older, but Jack was the more active. Jake was dull; some people on the plantation said he did not have good sense; but they rarely ventured to say so twice to Jack. Jack said he had more sense than any man on the place. At least, he idolized Jack.

At times the people commented on the white boy being so much with the black; but Jack’s father said it was as natural for them to run together as for two calves--a black one and a white one--when they were turned out together; that he had played with Uncle Ralph, the butler, when they were boys, and had taught the latter as much badness as he had him.

So the two boys grew up together as “Jack and Jake,” forming a friendship which prevented either of them ever knowing that Jake was a slave, and brought them up as friends rather than as master and servant.

If there was any difference, the boys thought it was rather in favor of Jake; for Jack had to go to school, and sit for some hours every morning “saying lessons” to his aunt, and had to look out (sometimes) for his clothes, while Jake just lounged around outside the school-room door, and could do as he pleased, for he was sure to get Jack’s suit as soon as it had become too much worn for Jack.

The games they used to play were surprising. Jack always knew of some interesting thing they could “make ’tence” (that is, pretence) that they were doing. They could be fishers and trappers, of course; for there was the creek winding down the meadow, in and out among the heavy willows on its banks; and in the holes under the fences and by the shelving rocks, where the water was blue and deep, there were shining minnows, and even little perch; and they could be lost on rafts, for there was the pond, and with their trousers rolled up to their thighs they could get on planks and pole themselves about.

But the best fun of all was “Injins.” Goodness! how much fun there was in Injins! There were bows and arrows, and tomahawks, and wigwams, and fires in the woods, and painted faces, and creeping-ups, and scalpings, and stealing horses, and hot pursuits, and hidings, and captures, and bringing the horses back, and the full revenge and triumph that are dear to boys’ hearts. Injins was, of all plays, the best. There was a dear old wonderful fellow named Leatherstocking, who was the greatest “Injin”-hunter in the world. Jack knew all about him. He had a book with him in it, and he read it and told Jake; and so they played Injins whenever they wanted real fun. It was a beautiful place for Injins; the hills rolled, the creeks wound in and out among the willows, and ran through thickets into the little river, and the woods surrounded the plantation on all sides, and stretched across the river to the Mont Air place, so that the boys could cross over and play on the other side of the thick woods.

When the war came, Jack was almost a big boy. He thought he was quite one. He was ten years old, and grew old two years at a time. His father went off with the army, and left his mother at home to take care of the plantation and the children. That included Ancy and wee Martha; not Jack, of course. So far from leaving any one to take care of Jack, he left Jack to take care of his mother. The morning he went away he called Jack to him and had a talk with him. He told him he wanted him to mind his mother, and look out for her, to help her and save her trouble, to take care of her and comfort her, and defend her always like a man. Jack was standing right in front of him, and when the talk began he was fidgety, because he was in a great hurry to go to the stable and ride his father’s horse Warrior to the house; but his father had never talked to him so before, and as he proceeded, Jack became grave, and when his father took his hand, and, looking him quietly in the eyes, said, “Will you, my son?” he burst out crying, and flung his arms around his father’s neck, and said, “Yes, father, I will.”

He did not go out of the house any more then; he left the horse to be brought down by Uncle Henry, the carriage-driver, and he sat quietly by his father, and kept his eyes on him, getting him anything he wanted; and he waited on his mother; and when his father went away, he kissed him, and said all over again that he would do what he promised. And when his mother locked herself in her room afterward, Jack sat on the front porch alone, in his father’s chair, and waited. And when she came out on the porch, with her eyes red from weeping and her face worn, he did not say anything, but quietly went and got her a glass of water. His father’s talk had aged him.

For the first two years, the war did not make much difference to Jack personally. It made a difference to the country, and to the people, and to his mother, but not to Jack individually, though it made a marked difference in him. It made him older. His father’s words never were forgotten. They had sobered him and steadied him. He had seen a good deal of the war. The troop trains passed up the railroad, the soldiers cheering and shouting, filling the cars and crowding on top of them; the army, or parts of it, marched through the country by the county roads, camping in the woods and fields. Many soldiers stopped at Jack’s home, where open house was kept, and everything was gladly given to them. All the visitors now were soldiers. Jack rode the gentlemen’s horses to water, with Jake behind him, if there was but one (in which case the horse was apt to get several waterings), or galloping after him, if there were more. They were hard riders, and got many falls, for the young officers were usually well mounted, and their horses were wild. But a fall was no disgrace. Jack remembered that his father once said to him, when a colt had thrown him, “All bold riders get falls; only those do not who ride tame horses.”

All the visitors were in uniform; all the talk was of war; all thoughts were of the Confederacy. Every one was enthusiastic. No sacrifices were too great to be made. The corn-houses were emptied into the great, covered, blue army wagons; the pick of the horses and mules was given up. Provisions became scanty and the food plain; coffee and tea disappeared; clothes that were worn out were replaced by homespun. Jack dressed in the same sort of coarse, grayish stuff of which Jake’s clothes used to be made; and his boots were made by Uncle Dick at the quarters; but this did not trouble him. It was rather fun than otherwise. Boys like to rough it. He had come to care little for these things. He was getting manlier. His mother called him her protector; his father, when he came home, as he did once or twice a year, called him “a man,” and introduced him to his friends as “my son.”

His mother began to consult him, to rely on him, to call on him. He used to go about with her, or go for her wherever she had business, however far off it might be.

The war had been going on two years, when the enemy first reached Jack’s home. It was a great shock to Jack, for he had never doubted that the Confederates would keep them back. There had been a great battle some time before, and his father had been wounded and taken prisoner (at first he was reported killed). But for that, Jack said, the “Yankees” would never have got there. The Union troops did not trouble Jack personally; but they made a great deal of trouble about the place. They took all the horses and mules that were good for anything and put them in their wagons. This was a terrible blow to Jack. All his life he had been brought up with the horses; each one was his pet or his friend.

After that the war seemed to be much more about Jack’s home than it had been before. The place was in the possession first of one army and then of the other, and at last, one winter, the two armies lay not far apart, with Jack’s home just between them. “The Yankees” were the nearer. Their pickets were actually on the plantation, at the ford, and at the bridge over the little river into which the creek emptied, in the big woods. There they lay with their camps over behind the hills, a mile or two farther away. At night the glow of their camp-fires could be seen. Jack had a pretty aunt who used to stay with his mother, and many young officers used to come over from the Confederate side to see her. In such cases, they usually came at night, leaving their horses, for scouting parties used to come in on them occasionally and stir them up. Once or twice skirmishes took place in the fields beyond the creek.

One evening a party of young officers came in and took supper. They had some great plan. They were quite mysterious, and consulted with Jack’s mother, who was greatly interested in them. They appeared a little shy of talking before Jack; but when his mother said he had so much judgment that he could be trusted, they talked openly in his presence. They had a plan to go into the Federal camp that night and seize the commanding officer. They wanted to know all the paths. Jack could tell them. He was so proud. There was not a cow-path he did not know for two or three miles around, for he and Jake had hunted all over the country. He could tell them everything, and he did so with a swelling heart. They laid sheets of paper down on the dining-table, and he drew them plans of the roads and hills and big woods; showed where the river could be waded, and where the ravines were. He asked his mother to let him go along with them, but she thought it best for him not to go.

[Illustration: HE DREW THEM PLANS OF THE ROADS AND HILLS AND BIG WOODS.]

They set out at bedtime on foot, a half-dozen gay young fellows, laughing and boasting of what they would do, and Jack watched them enviously as their forms faded away in the night. They did not succeed in capturing the officer; but they captured a number of horses and a picket at the bridge, and came off triumphant, with only one or two of their number slightly wounded. Shortly afterwards they came over, and had a great time telling their experiences. They had used the map Jack made for them, and had got safely beyond the pickets and reached the camp. There, finding the sentries on guard, they turned back, and taking the road, marched down on the picket, as if they had come to relieve them. Coming from the camp in this way, they had got upon the picket, when, suddenly drawing their pistols and poking them up against the Yankees, they forced them to surrender, and disarmed them. Then taking two of them off separately, they compelled them to give the countersign. Having got this, they left the prisoners under guard of two of their number, and the rest went back to camp. With the countersign they passed the sentry, and went into the camp. Then they found that the commanding officer had gone off somewhere, and was not in camp that night, and there were so many men stirring about that they did not dare to wait. They determined, therefore, to capture some horses and return. They were looking over the lines of horses to take their pick when they were discovered. Each man had selected a horse, and was trying to get him, when the alarm was given, and they were fired on. They had only time to cut the halters when the camp began to pour out. Flinging themselves on the horses’ backs, they dashed out under a fusillade, firing right and left. They took to the road, but it had been picketed, and they had to dash through the men who held it under a fire poured into their faces. All had passed safely except one, whose horse had become unmanageable, and had run away, flying the track and taking to the fields.

He was, they agreed, the finest horse in the lot, and his rider had had great trouble getting him, and had lingered so long that he came near being captured. He had finally cut the halter, and had cut it too short to hold by.

They had great fun laughing at their comrade, and the figure he cut as his barebacked horse dashed off into the darkness, with him swinging to the mane. He had shortly been dragged off of him in the woods, and when he appeared in camp next day, he looked as if he had been run through a mill. His eyes were nearly scratched out of his head, and his uniform was torn into shreds.

The young fellow, who still showed the marks of his bruising, took the chaffing good-naturedly, and confessed that he had nearly lost his life trying to hold on to his captive. He had been down into the woods the next day to try and get his horse; though it was the other side of the little river, and really within the Federal lines. But though he caught sight of him, it was only a glimpse. The animal was much too wild to be caught, and the only thing he received for his pains was a grazing shot from a picket, who had caught sight of him prowling around, and had sent a ball through his cap.

The narration of the capture and escape made Jack wild with excitement. All the next day he was in a state of tremor, and that evening he and Jake spent a long time up in the barn together talking, or rather Jack talking and Jake listening. Jake seemed to be doubtful; but Jack’s enthusiasm carried all before him, and Jake yielded, as he nearly always did.

All that evening after they got back to the house Jack was very quiet. It was the quiet of suppressed excitement. He was thinking.

Next day, after dinner, he and Jake started out. They were very mysterious. Jack carried a rope that they got from the stable, and the old musket that he used in hunting. Jake carried an axe and some corn. They struck out for the creek as if they were going hunting in the big woods, which they entered; but at the creek they turned and made for about opposite where Jack understood his friend had been thrown by the wild horse that night. They had to avoid the pickets on the roads, so they stuck to the woods.

At the river the first difficulty presented itself; the bridge and ford were picketed. How were they to get across? It was over their heads in the middle. Jack could swim a little, but Jake could not swim a stroke. Besides, they did not wish to get their clothes wet, as that would betray them at home. Jack thought of a raft, but that would take too long to make; so finally they decided to go down the stream and try to cross on an old tree that had fallen into the water two or three years before.

The way down was quite painful, for the underbrush along the banks was very dense, and was matted with brambles and briers, which stuck through their clothes; added to which there was a danger of “snakes,” as Jake constantly insisted. But after a slow march they reached the tree. It lay diagonally across the stream, as it had fallen, its roots on the bank on their side and the branches not quite reaching the other bank. This was a disappointment. However, Jack determined to try, and if it was not too deep beyond the branches, then Jake could come. Accordingly, he pulled off his clothes, and carefully tying them up in a bundle, he equipped himself with a long pole and crawled out on the log. When he got among the branches, he fastened his bundle and let himself down. It was a little over his head, but he let go, and with a few vigorous strokes he reached the other side. The next thing to do was to get Jake over. Jake was still on the far side, and, with his eyes wide open, was declaring, vehemently, “Nor, sir,” he “warn gwine to git in that deep water, over his head.” He “didn’t like water nohow.” Jack was in a dilemma. Jake had to be got over, and so had his clothes. They had an axe. They could cut poles if he could get back. There was nothing for it but to try. Accordingly he went up a little way, took a plunge, and, after hard pulling and much splashing and blowing, got back to the tree and climbed up. They were afraid the Yankees might see them if they worked too long on the river, as it was a little cleared up on the hill above, so they went back into the woods and set to work. Jack selected a young pine not too large for them to “tote,” and they cut it down, and cut off two poles, which they carried down to the river, and finally, after much trouble, worked along the tree in the water, and got them stretched across from the branch of the fallen log to the other bank. Jake could hardly be persuaded to try it, but Jack offered him all his biscuit (his customary coin with Jake), and promised to help him, and finally Jake was got over, “cooning it”--by which was meant crawling on his hands and knees.

The next thing was to find the horse, for Jack had determined to capture him. This was a difficult thing to effect. In the first place, he might not be there at all, as he might have escaped or have been caught; and the woods had to be explored with due regard to the existence of the Federal pickets, who were posted at the roads and along the paths. If the pickets caught sight of them they might be shot, or even captured. The latter seemed much the worse fate to Jack, unless, indeed, the Yankees should send them to Johnson’s Island, where his father was. In that case, however, what would his mother do? It would not do to be captured. Jack laid out the plan of campaign. They would “beat the woods,” going up the stream at a sufficient distance apart, Jake, with the axe and corn, on the inside, and he, with the gun and rope, outside. Thus, if either should be seen, it would be he, and if he came on a soldier, he, having the gun, would capture him. He gave orders that no word was to be spoken. If any track was found notice was to be given by imitating a partridge; if danger appeared, it was to be shown by the cat-bird’s call of “Naik, naik.” This was the way they used to play “Injins.”

They worked their way along for an hour or two without seeing any traces, and Jake, contrary to Jack’s command, called out to him:

“Oh, Jack, we ain’ gwine fine no horse down heah; dese woods is too big; he done los’. There’s a clearin’ right ahead here; let’s go home.”

There was a little field just ahead, with one old cabin in it; a path ran down from it to the bridge. Jack replied in the cat-bird’s warning note of “Naik, naik,” but Jake was tired of working his way through briers and bushes, and he began to come over toward Jack, still calling to him. Suddenly there was a shout just ahead; they stopped; it was repeated.

“Who dat calling?” asked Jake, in a frightened undertone.

“Hush! it’s a picket,” said Jack, stooping and motioning him back, just as a volume of white smoke with blazes in it seemed to burst out of the woods at the edge of the clearing, and the stillness was broken by the report of half a dozen carbines. Leaves and pieces of bark fell around them, but the bullets flew wide of their mark.

“Run, Jake!” shouted Jack, as he darted away; but Jake had not waited for orders; he had dropped his axe and corn, and was “flying.”

Jack soon came up with him, and they dashed along together, thinking that perhaps the picket knew where they had crossed the river, and would try to cut them off.

In their excitement they took a way farther from the river than that by which they had come. The woods were open, and there were small spaces covered with coarse grass on the little streams. As they ran along down a hill approaching one of these, they heard a sound of trampling coming towards them which brought them to a sudden stand-still with their hearts in their mouths. It must be the enemy. They were coming at full gallop. What a crashing they made coming on! They did not have time to run, and Jack immediately cocked his old musket and resolved at least to fight. Just then there galloped up to him, and almost over him, a magnificent bay horse without saddle or bridle. At sight of Jack he swerved and gave a loud snort of alarm, and then, with his head high in the air, and with his dilated red nostrils and eyes wide with fright, went dashing off into the woods.