It was probably another of my mistakes to have left the road and climbed that hill to get into the wood. I saw at the foot of the mountain below me the little old house by the roadside, which reminded me, both by its similarity in appearance and location of the old shanty near Manassas, where I had experienced so much annoying trouble from the quizzical and curious old bushwhacker proprietor, after my failure to get through the lines to Washington that night in August, 1861. It must have been about supper time when I had gotten pretty close to the house that day, because the curling, blueish smoke from a freshly-made wood fire was just then beginning to pour from the top of the big rough-stone and mud chimney, which was, as usual, hung on to the end of the cabin as a sort of annex.

The sentry I had so recently left at the top of the mountain had said that "our men" were in the habit of going down to the house, but, with the vision before me of former experience in such a mixed crowd in a shanty in Virginia, I quickly enough decided to apply some strategy and to flank the obstacle.

It's a simple matter to plan things and to apply strategy to the proposed movements. By the time I had climbed up that perpendicular cliff to the side of the road, through a thicket of last year's blackberry bushes, that were apparently growing out of a stone quarry, I was so done out that I had to sit down on the ground awhile to get my second wind. I had expended sufficient strength and nerve in making that climb to have carried me miles past the house, if I had only made the dash on the straight road.

From my seat on the rocks among the bushes, which was elevated considerably above the winding road down the mountain, I could see by the refracted sunset, in that clear atmosphere, a long way ahead of me.

There seemed to be a thick, almost dense growth of timber, which was still below me, so that I looked only over the tops of the trees, as one views the chimney-tops of a city from a hill. I knew that somewhere in that general direction were the Union forces, which had recently attacked the Rebels at the Gap. I could only imagine that their outposts of cavalry were within--say a few miles at furthest.

The house that I was working so hard to avoid was yet, seemingly, as close as it had been before I had quit the road. But from my isolated position I could see only the top of it. The road had become lost under the tree-tops. Looking back, I could see nothing but the stockades at the top of the Gap, and these I could only locate in the fast gathering twilight, because I knew their exact position. There were no signs of life behind me--nor before me--except that the smoke kept curling straight upward from the chimney-top, until it formed in appearance a water-spout in the evening sky.

Up to that time, I might have safely returned to the Rebel camps, or, if I had been halted and arrested, it would not have been a difficult matter to have accounted for my being out of bounds at the time. But I had no intention of returning. I had started for home, and I was willing to risk everything to get there. I knew very well at that moment I had deliberately added to my peril, in a blind fearless sort of a way, that causes me a shudder as I write it down here to-day. If I had been caught, I would have been liable to summary execution, on the simple charge of deserting to the enemy, and, of course, any delay in the execution of this sentence must have resulted only in my character as a spy being discovered by the investigation which must follow. While thinking over these things, for the moments I sat on that mountain-side that evening, I recalled my similar experience while trying to get out of Beauregard's army in Virginia. I planned a plausible excuse to offer, in case I should accidentally run into anything hostile, when it suddenly occurred to me that the "official papers" about the strength of Beauregard's army in August, 1861, which I had gotten out of the telegraph office and had endeavored to smuggle through, were the cause of my greatest danger that time, and I had resolved then that I should never again be caught with any papers in my possession.

Following my thoughts with the movements of my hands into my pockets, to strip myself of papers, and be prepared for a dash for liberty, I hauled out the letter which the Captain had handed to me with specific instructions to deliver to the Lieutenant.

I destroyed it with a good deal of energy, after having first nervously opened and read it. By that one simple act, I had cut down the last bridge behind me. But you will not be surprised at my rash conduct, in thus robbing the Confederate mail, when I give you the substance of the letter, as nearly as I can recollect, and, by the way, a lifetime--a long and checkered lifetime--will not serve to efface from the memory the recollections of such days and nights as this in one's experience.

"HEADQUARTERS, NEAR KNOXVILLE.

"LIEUTENANT COMMANDING "DETACHMENT MARYLAND ARTILLERY, _Cumberland Gap:_

"I send you by ---- the Muster Rolls, etc.

"It was the intention to go myself, but we have some prospect of a move in another direction, and I will wait here for further orders. We have borrowed this horse from the Staff, so that these papers can be fixed up and returned by ----, so they can be returned to Richmond.

"I have a letter from Richmond asking about the antecedents of ----, and the purpose of sending him up is, that you and the "Colonel" (the Sergeant), who brought him in, can answer.

"My information is, that he is wanted at Richmond for something. I'm waiting to hear through the Secretary of War."

"(Signed.)"

This was enough for me. I was not going back now; in fact, I'd rather be shot in trying to escape in Kentucky than to be deliberately hung in Tennessee. Those who have read my story will not censure me for opening that letter and neglecting to deliver it personally. Probably the rattle-snakes that crawled out of their holes among the rocks in that hill-side, when the weather became warmer, were astonished at the fragments of that official correspondence lying around there so loosely; may be the crumpled and torn papers became the basis of some nests. I only know that it was not delivered--not much.

[Illustration: CUMBERLAND GAP--THIS WAS ENOUGH FOR ME.]

This accounted for the Captain's curious questions the day I left him. I saw it all. I got up on my feet suddenly and buckled on my armor, as it were, and prepared to fly. It was getting a little late in the evening for a walk out alone in that country, but I had considerable of a motive behind me, and something of an inducement in front. Indeed, I felt, for the time being, that I could almost fly as a bird, so eager was I to get there. In starting off so suddenly, I neglected to properly take my bearings, so plunged down, recklessly, over the rocks and through the bushes, only knowing that I was going in the general direction which led me the furthest away from the Rebel camps that I had left up on top of the hill. I kept going, going blindly, I thought straight ahead, but making little progress. I wasn't the least bit tired then. While sitting down to read that letter I had rested wonderfully in a short time. It was only when I climbed down off the big hill or mountain, and had plunged, like a scared deer, into the dense growth of woods, that was at the foot of the mountain, that I was stopped, almost abruptly by the sudden appearance of darkness, which seemed to have dropped around me like a curtain. The curtain wasn't pinned with a star, because I couldn't see the evening star on the horizon on account of the trees, that were as thick here as the blackberry bushes had been up on top of the mountain.

I could only see the sky by looking straight up. I don't know that I looked up either; in fact, I don't believe I did. My recollection is that I was only concerned about where to put my feet, and, as a consequence, I was obliged to look down pretty much all the time pretty sharply. I should have appreciated just then, more than anything else, "A lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."

It took me a little while to "get used to it," as they say when one plunges suddenly into darkness.

I have read very nice poetry about the "pathless groves," and the "pleasure in the pathless woods where none intrude," and all that sort or thing about the grandeur, and majesty, and silence of the woods at night, but I did not relish this dreadful silence and majesty that night, and, to tell the truth, I've never learned to appreciate the same grandeur since.

I like well enough to be in the woods at night, if I am one of a camp at any army corps headquarters, and 25,000 soldiers are looking out for the Rebels that may be prowling through the majestic woods, but, alone, I don't like it a bit.

I was alone in a deep, dark wood, somewhere between the outposts of the two armies, in the neighborhood of Cumberland Gap.

Everything around me had become obscured by the thick darkness, that one can almost feel on a dark night. I kept going, as I supposed, straight ahead, clambering over fallen logs, stretching out my hands before me as I stepped cautiously ahead to guard against a too sudden contact with the trunks of trees, stumbling over exposed roots, or becoming entangled in undergrowth.

This was the tiresome, dreadfully tiresome and discouraging path that I trod that night, for hour after hour, in my efforts to get home.

Almost exhausted, I began to grow impatient at not meeting with any encouraging outlook. I felt that I had had enough of this and was entitled to a change. I was sure that I had traveled over sufficient ground to have brought me, at least, a couple of miles nearer the Union lines. But I did not then take into consideration the fact that I had been going blindly, and had been merely stumbling and crawling around in a circle, as I have heard all persons do who become lost in the woods.

I realized with a shudder of horror that I was lost--lost, and lost forever--in that dark wood nearest the enemy; because I knew very well, from the observations of the country that I had made from the mountain top, that I should have come out on to the road that led on toward the Union line of pickets long before, if I had kept the course that I had so carefully laid out before dark. What did I do? I sat down on a big log and cried like a big baby; and that's what you would have done.

I wasn't so badly scared as I was demoralized, tired out, and discouraged.

After I had sat long enough to have somewhat recovered myself, I remembered all that I had ever read or heard of persons who were lost in the woods. I recalled that when only a boy, in my mountain home, I had connected myself voluntarily with a party of kind-hearted mountaineers who had joined in a body to search those mountain fastnesses for two little children of six and eight years old, who had strayed from their home a day or so previously, and were lost in the woods. My two days and nights' experience in that searching party became of great service to me now.

I first attempted to ascertain in the darkness, by feeling with my hands, which side of the trunks of the standing trees the moss was growing on. I knew that if I could establish for a certainty this fact, from several of the trees, I would, from this circumstance, have been able to locate the points of the compass, but it failed me, because of the utter darkness of the night and the absence of such a trifling thing as a match, with which to make a glimmer of light in that overpowering gloom. Matches are cheap enough, but, if I had had the money then, I would have been willing to have given as much cash for the little stick of wood, with a light on the end of it, as would have bought all the logs contained in that forest of lumber.

There was another sign that has never failed the lost and the distressed, from wherever looked up to, when the sky was not clouded--the North Star.

While a lad at school I had been taught how to find this, the only true and fixed star, and that night, while lost and in such dire distress in that dark woods, along side of the enemy, who had, by this time, surely learned of my escape, I looked up through scalding tears for the dipper and the pointer, and through the leafy branches of a high, old oak tree, the bright, twinkling, constant and true little North star was looking down brightly upon me as I sat there on the old log. What a bright, beautiful, hopeful little emblem it was to me then, and how often have I recalled this night, when I look up still and find it always the same friend.

I felt as much relief at the discovery of the North star as if I had found a lost trail in the sky. I felt that somehow I should be able, from this fact, to come out all right, though I was sorely puzzled to discover that, in appearance, the star seemed to be almost over the top of the mountain that I was so anxious to get away from. I did not then understand, as I since learned, that the range of mountains is nearly North and South.

"I passed a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly thoughts, That, as I am a Christian, faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days."

This quotation expresses in the familiar lines my experience more satisfactorily than I could attempt in a column a description of this one night of holy terror. It's bad enough to be lost under any circumstances, but at night, between two lines in a deep, dark forest, with the certainty of an ignominious death pursuing me as a phantom, almost mocking me through the screeching, hooting owls, whose diabolical laughter at my distress, in having failed to reach the goal that was in sight before dark were audible above the tree-tops.

As I have so often said before, there is only one way to properly understand the feelings under such conditions, and that is, "put yourself in his place." This can only be done, and that but feebly, in the imagination now, because there probably never will be just such another "dark path to glory" in that part of the country.

If I could only have kept moving in any direction, it would have been something of a relief, but I couldn't stir without stumbling over old roots of fallen trees. I didn't mind that so much, but everything was so awfully quiet and solemn that it seemed as if, every step I made, my feet would crash into the little twigs that made so much noise that I became startled every time, lest my every movement would be heard for miles distant.

So the only thing for me to do was to sit down on an old rotten log, that I had at last stumbled on, and wait for more light. The wild, scared thoughts and weird, horrible sounds that went through my head while I sat on that log in that dark woods that long, long night, can never be described. There were owls, bats, and other solemn birds of the night, sitting on the adjacent trees, hooting in chorus, and flying past a crazy-looking, wild boy of the woods, sitting like a knot on a log, wild-eyed, and with frantic gestures that would become a person with an attack of mania, who attempts blindly to protect and defend himself from imaginary enemies that would fly uncomfortably close.

I didn't see any big game. I didn't want to see any. I was not hunting; but I imagined there was a whole menagerie of such things around me. We hear a great deal about the silence and the majestic grandeur of the forest, but that's all poetry. There are more noises--and the most horrible noises--when alone, to be heard in a deep wood on a still, quiet night than ever I heard in the streets of any city at midnight.

It was these sounds that stirred the blood in my veins and kept the cold chills running down my back, so that I sat there and shook like one with an attack of ague.

When I could stand it no longer, and found it impossible to move in either direction, I climbed a tree. In getting up a pretty good-sized tree, I felt that I was out of the world and away from the danger of crawling and creeping things, though the owls became more curious and inquisitive than ever. That wood was full of owls. I was more afraid of them that night than of panthers--or Rebels either.

Once up in the tree, I was kept busily employed with the necessity for constantly changing my position. I couldn't get "fixed" comfortably on any limb or crotch in that old tree, and I verily believe that I "adapted myself" to every position that it afforded.

From my elevated position in the top branch of the tree I could look out through the tops of adjoining trees. It was before the season for the leaves to be thick in that section.

In one direction, I discovered what I had at first taken for a heavy cloud on the horizon were the outlines of the mountain. There were no signs, from my outlook, of the house and road I had seen last before coming into the woods. There was nothing whatever to serve as a guide, except the little North star. I could only wait for daylight, which must soon come. It seemed as if I had been ages in the woods. I looked eagerly for the breaking of the gray dawn, but I had been straining my eyes in the wrong direction, expecting in my dazed condition to see the first glimmer come from the western horizon. It was when I looked back of me, with a sigh of discouragement, that I first beheld the light of a coming dawn.

"Night's candles were burnt out, And jocund day stood tiptoe On the misty mountain top."

In a moment I became renewed with the old life and fire of those boyish days. Only stopping long enough to get a good view of the surrounding hills or mountains, I was able to discover that the Gap, from whence I came, was, apparently, closer than when I had first taken to the woods in the early twilight.

If I didn't know exactly where to go to find the Union pickets, I saw quite plainly where _not_ to go, and knowing that I'd not make any mistake in getting further away from the Gap, I crawled hastily out of the tree, and in another moment was hopping along through the woods, which were yet quite dark down on the ground.

The uneasy night birds had flown. I heard a chicken crow, though it may have been a mile distant. I steered as clear of that signal of the proximity of a house as a sailor does of a fog-horn. As the light began to break through the tops of the trees, I was able to make better headway. The big mountain, that had cast a shadow over the world of woods all that night, loomed up grandly in the gray dawn; the Gap stood out as clearly defined in its profile as if it had been cut out by a chisel. There was nothing stirring anywhere but me; all the noises had apparently gone to sleep, and I, recognizing by former experience that the early morning is the safest time to travel in an enemy's lines, was making the best use I could of the "limited time at my disposal" before the Rebel officers would wake up and start their scouts out after me.