In the Saddle

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XX

  THE OPERATIONS OF THE BRIDGE-BURNERS

  Deck was alone, a prisoner, his ankles bound together, his wristsstrapped behind him, and his body made fast to the old bench against thefence. He was not absolutely uncomfortable physically; for Brown Kippshad extended some consideration to him, so that he suffered no pain fromthe bonds which secured him. The fastenings were straps, taken from hisaccoutrements; and they did not cut into his flesh, as cords might havedone if they had been tied too tight.

  All his pain was in the soul, which manacles are dramatically andmetaphorically said to pierce when the victim is a high-spirited person.Deck had been captured at his post; and this fact humiliated him, thougha court-martial would have acquitted him of all blame. No one belowcould possibly know that anything had happened to him, or a file oftroopers would have been sent to release him before this time. He wasalmost in sight of his father and Artie; but they were busy watching andwaiting for the fight which all believed would certainly take place.

  But the prisoner was not left entirely without occupation other than hisneedless and undeserved self-reproaches; for if any one was to blame itwas his father, who had placed him alone at such a distance from therest of the force, though no one suspected the presence of an enemy inthat direction. He had enough to do to observe the operations of thebridgemen. The moment they had secured the prisoner to the satisfactionof the foreman, the other three hastened to disappear over theembankment. They were out of sight but a few minutes, and then one ofthem returned, while the other two passed up to him several gallon cans.By this time Kipps joined them; and a lot of small bundles of lightwood, such as is much used in the South in kindling fires, were tossedup, and caught by the foreman.

  Deck understood that all these articles were combustibles, though hecould not make out the nature of some of them. All of them were leftwhere they had been received, on the platform of the bridge. It wasevident enough to the manacled observer that the structure was doomed,and was to be burned in the very presence of the cavalry sent to protectit. Deck twisted, squirmed, and struggled when he realized theintentions of the bridgemen.

  It galled him to the inmost depths of the soul to think that the bridgewas to be destroyed before his eyes, and he had not the power to doanything to save it. He did not believe he would be left to perish inthe flames, if they reached the place where he was secured, and he hadnot a selfish fear. He was tempted to repeat the cries he had madebefore; but the threat of Kipps to shoot him if he "made a row"restrained him. It was folly to throw away his life; for he was vainenough to believe it might be of some service to his country in its hourof peril.

  When the men had finished passing up the material, which had plainlybeen collected in this place for the destruction of the bridge, each ofthem took a tin case under his arm, and they moved over to the shelterof the fence where they had left their tools. They stopped there longenough to obtain a couple of shovels and as many pickaxes, and thenwent to the end of the fence next to the bridge.

  If the occasion had been less serious, Deck would have been amused atthe bridgemen's attempts to conceal themselves from the force below.They worked like miners following a vein of ore deep down in the bowelsof the earth, as the witness had seen them in pictures, lying on theirbacks, or curled up in a heap, using the pickaxe as they could. Betweenthe wall and the embankment the earth had settled so that there was aconsiderable cavity. Two of the men worked in this hole for a while, theothers lying prone upon the ground and watching them.

  Then the four cans they had brought were deposited in the aperture,Kipps adjusting and preparing them with his own hands. Deck did notunderstand what they intended to accomplish by this operation, though heconcluded that they meant to blow up the abutment, and that the canscontained powder or dynamite. Whatever the work was, it was sooncompleted; and then the movements of the men became more amusing thanever. They crawled about on their hands and knees, carrying the cans andbundles of light wood.

  They unbound the packages of wood, arranged the little sticks in heaps,and poured what Deck supposed was spirits of turpentine or kerosene overthem and on the planks of the structure. The work of preparation wassoon completed; for the men seemed to be skilled in the operation, asthough they had had experience in these details. They all crawled backto the shelter of the fence, and straightened their backs again.

  "Now, my little lily of the valley, I shall have to put you undermarching orders," Kipps said, as he stopped before the prisoner.

  "What are you going to do with me?" asked Deck, though he hardlyexpected a definite answer to the question.

  "I don't know, my butterfly; but I reckon you uns over there," hereplied, pointing to the soldiers below, "would make mischief for we unsif we stay here a great while longer;" and he proceeded to release thevictim from the bench.

  "I judge that you intend to blow up and burn this bridge," added Deck.

  "The whole Yankee army couldn't save it now!" exclaimed the chiefbridgeman. "We uns, about two hundred so'diers along with us, was sentover here to make an opening between these two hills; and if you thinkwe ain't go'n' to do it, why, you don't know Brown Kipps, that's all!"

  "I think I have been pretty well introduced to him," replied Deck, whohad become somewhat accustomed to the situation; and he thought heshould fare better with such a person as the foreman by beinggood-natured than by growling and annoying him. "When you whistled'Yankee Doodle,' I made up my mind that you were a true Union man, andmy heart went out to you."

  "I ain't much on 'Yankee Doodle,' and I could done better with 'Dixie;'and I ain't none o' them carrion as whistles 'Yankee Doodle' for the funon't. It did well enough to still your nerves," said Kipps, as hefinished releasing the legs of his prisoner. "Now I want you to march upto that place where you see the wagon standin' down by the side of therailroad. You needn't keep step, nor nothin' o' that sort. I reckon thecheese-knife and the shooter are too heavy for a young feller like youto kerry, and I'll tote 'em for you," continued the bridge foreman, ashe began to examine the lock of the carbine.

  "You are very kind, Mr. Kipps," replied Deck.

  "That's me all over when you use me well; but, my little lion, if youshould take into that small coon's head o' yourn to be ongrateful for mykindness to you, and make a row, or try to run away, I should have toshoot you jest the same as I should a 'possum if I wanted a Christmasdinner in the woods. Is this thing loaded with ball?"

  "Of course it is; it wouldn't be any better than a broomstick if it werenot," replied Deck.

  "I don't know as I see through this thing edzactly," said Kipps, as hecontinued to study the mechanism of the lock. "I've got the cartridges,but I don't see any ramrod. Won't you just show me how to work it?"

  "Teach you how to use a carbine to shoot me with!" exclaimed Deck,trying to laugh. "You must excuse me, for that would be givinginformation to the enemy in time of war, and I should be court-martialedfor it."

  "Jest as you like, Yank; but if there is one load in the pipestem, thatwill be enough to put you out of the way of any court-martial. I reckonI see into it now; you put the pill in here."

  "I haven't anything to say on that subject, Mr. Kipps; but if youshould happen to shoot yourself with it, that would save some Unionsoldier the trouble of doing the job," added Deck.

  "But we uns hain't got no time to fool," said the foreman briskly."You'll let the cat out jest as soon as you see us by the wagon. You canstart things now, and open up the cat-bag as soon as you git 'emstarted."

  "What's all that gwine on down below?" asked Lank Rablan, as he lookedcautiously by the end of the fence.

  "Well, what is it?" demanded Kipps impatiently.

  "They are all lookin' up hyer; and that feller with a squawrel's tail inhis hat is shaking a white rag over his head as though he'd lost hissenses, if he ever had any," Lank explained.

  "No matter what it is! Go to work, and hurry up, Sykes!" said Kipps invigorous tones. "Now, my little Yankee angel, jest move over to theot
her side of the track, and march lively!"

  Sykes was already crawling along the bridge, lighting the fires he hadprepared. There were not more than half a dozen of them, and they weresoon blazing up, though in the bright sunshine they did not make muchshow. Deck followed Lobkill and Rablan, as he was directed, while Kipps,with the carbine in his hand, brought up the rear. The foreman changedhis plan when he found that the attention of the soldiers below wasdirected to the bridge; and, still sheltered by the fence, the two inadvance left the level of the track, and made their way along the slopeof the embankment.

  Deck was ordered to follow them; but as his arms were still bound behindhim, he found it was a rather difficult matter to preserve his balance.Kipps spoke to him quite savagely, perhaps believing he was making amovement to slide down the slope to the field below.

  "If you think it is an easy matter to walk along this steep bank withyour hands tied behind you, just let Mr. Lobkill put you in the samecondition that I am, and see how you will get along," replied Deck, asgood-naturedly as before.

  "There may be sunthin' in that. Jest hold still a moment," said Kipps.

  Deck was glad enough to stop; for he was hardly able to keep on hisfeet, as the earth slipped away under him. The foreman unstrapped thefastening, and put the sling in his pocket, perhaps for the same use inthe future.

  "Now, little lovely, trot again; but don't you forget that I have gotthe hang of this shooting-iron, and the ball can trot faster'n you can."

  The prisoner obeyed the order, and he was beginning to think that theforeman was a tolerably good sort of a fellow, aside from his politics.He followed his leaders; and he had now no difficulty in keeping up withthem, for he could retain his balance as well as any of them. In a shorttime they reached the vicinity of the wagon, which stood in the field,with the six mules that drew it there fastened to the pole. Themule-driver was a negro, who was asleep on the grass by the side of thevehicle.

  "Now, my little Yankee saint, we are all right, and in about threeminutes and three-quarters that bridge will go up the air; or some on'twill, and the rest on't will go the same way in smoke," said Kipps, ashe seated himself on a disused sleeper, and took a black pipe from hispocket. "Don't you think we uns are right smart down this way?"

  "I suppose you are;

  'For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.'"

  "But Satan didn't find any for you uns in the ranks over yonder, furthey've been idle all day," retorted Kipps with an explosivehorse-laugh.

  "But we whipped out a force of Texan Rangers over yonder, and I don'tbelieve they have done running yet," answered Deck.

  "Them Texicans is gwine to wipe you uns out 'fore they git done withyou," added Lank Rablan. "I consayt they see'd sunthin' on the bridge,fur they was all lookin' that way when we left."

  "There comes Sykes, and I reckon he can tell us sunthin' about it," saidKipps. "If anything's the matter down below there, I reckon we four hadbetter go down and lick the Yankees out of their boots."

  "Don't you do it, Mr. Kipps," interposed Deck. "They might hang you forburning the bridge."

  "Wait till we hear what Sykes has got to say, and then"--

  But the remark, brilliant as it might have proved to be, was interruptedby the explosion which was heard on the south road, and which had beenthe signal for Captain Dingfield to make the attack.

  "There goes your bridge!" exclaimed Kipps, looking at his prisoner witha glow of exultation on his brown face. "Now I reckon you can see thatyour Yankee cavalry couldn't save it."

  "I cannot see the bridge from here, and I don't know whether or not theyhave been able to save it. Wait till we get further news, Mr. Kipps."

  "I reckon we don't stop here no longer, for we've done our work, andthat bridge is burning lively before this time," added the foreman, ashe shouted to the negro driver to hitch on his mules.

  In ten minutes more the bridgemen had loaded themselves in the coveredwagon, with all their tools and material. Deck was given a place underthe canvas, while the four men were seated at the forward end. The negrostarted his team, and the prisoner had no idea where he was going.