Without meeting with any obstructions, except the fallen logs and bushes, I must have traveled a mile, when I suddenly emerged from the woods on to a path, or mountain road, which led in the same direction I wished to go. I cautiously followed this until it led into another, a larger and apparently a more generally used wagon road, which I knew must be the main road leading up to the Gap from Kentucky. This, I knew, if followed up, would bring me into the Union lines. But it would also be likely to be used by any Rebel cavalrymen or scouts who might be sent out from the Gap.

Not having any means of defense with me, in case I should be confronted by an armed scout, I would simply have been at his mercy and been led back to the Gap, like a sheep with a rope about its neck. On this account, I was obliged to keep myself under cover of the woods, but, fearing to trust myself again in the deep woods too far, I scouted along the edge as near the road as I dared, keeping the open road in view all the time.

In this way I moved along slowly enough, watching eagerly up and down the road for some signs of a picket in blue in one direction and a scout in gray in the other.

Soldiers seemed to be awfully scarce out there that morning. I thought I'd never get out of the woods, or find relief from the long strain on my nerves, my legs, and my stomach. Not seeing anything in either direction for so long, I at last, to help myself along faster and with less difficulty, boldly came out to the road, and, with one good, long look behind me, started to walk ahead at a double-quick gait.

I had not gone far when, stopping to listen, as was my habit on such occasions, I was startled to hear what I supposed were horses' feet behind me. In a moment I was in the woods at the side of the road, where my long jumps made such a noise in the dry undergrowth that I had to stop and lie down.

I saw two gray coats coming up the road together, both of them on foot.

Dropping myself to the ground as suddenly as if shot, just where I stood, I lay for a few seconds in a tremor of fright, the only sound audible being my heart wildly beating.

As the two men passed by me on the road, they were talking in a hurried way between themselves, and my presence was not discovered. I lifted my head far enough to look after them when they passed. I saw that they were none other than two men from our own Rebel company of Maryland Artillery; but, worst of all, one of the two was Lanyard, my old Richmond mate and chum; the other was a fat, young German, who had been a baker in Richmond.

The first thought in my mind was that these two fellows had been sent out on the road after me. Any person would have so surmised under like circumstances, and, like myself, would have been terror-stricken at the thought of being so close to them. It was not comforting, either, to know that they were now not only on my path, but they were ahead of me.

What to do under the suddenly-changed condition of things was only a momentary puzzle. I argued to myself that they could not go very far ahead on that road without running into the Union pickets, and that, if they were not captured by them, they would soon be coming back over that path. In either case, I should avoid the road, and endeavor once again to get through to the Union lines through the woods only, while the daylight lasted.

The thought that perhaps our forces had fallen back some distance, or that they might have wholly abandoned that part of the country, was not comforting. While I did not at first understand why Lanyard, of all others, should be the person detailed to intercept me, I began to imagine that his notion was that I had innocently strayed off and been lost, and that his purpose was only to aid me in a friendly way, in my return to the Rebel camp.

While walking through the wood, some such thoughts as I have tried to describe were crowding each other through my now frenzied brain, when the current was suddenly changed by hearing the wild barking of dogs ahead, in the direction my pursuers had taken on the road.

If there is one thing more than any other that a scout detests, while he is quietly pursuing his business, it's a barking dog.

Crawling carefully toward the sound, I could see some smoke above the trees, and a little beyond, on the opposite side of the road, a house.

That was enough for me. I wanted some breakfast terribly just then, but I had no use for any more houses. What I wanted to see was a camp of soldiers with their tents and the Stars and Stripes floating over them.

It took a long time to flank that insignificant little old house, and made my legs very tired, but I succeeded in accomplishing the task at last, and had the satisfaction of looking _back_ at it from a hill-top on the road, some distance inside, or beyond it.

I saw then what surprised me no little. In the road and all about the front of the house that I had passed, were quite a crowd of men and some horses tied to the fences alongside. The men seemed to be armed, and they wore blue clothes. I wasn't exactly sure of this from the distance.

I remembered my mistake in Virginia in trusting too much to the blue clothes, and determined that this time I should be sure the wearer of the blue was a Union soldier and not a disguised Rebel.

I hoped sincerely and prayed that I had passed a Union outpost, and was at last within the United States. That they had not seen me was evident, from the indifferent and careless manner of the men. I judged, too, that the dogs had announced the approach of Lanyard and the baker to the house, and that they were both detained there.

I trudged ahead, hugging the road closely, meeting with no one in that lonely country, until so tired out and exhausted, after my night and now half of the day, that I was forced to sit down by the roadside to rest.

I don't think I went to sleep, but must have dozed off, so completely exhausted had I become. I dreamed of my capture, the tramp of horses'

feet, and heard the angry voices, which I had imagined belonged to a gang of Rebels, who were dragging my helpless body to a good place for a hanging.

In this nightmare in the broad daylight I was as helpless as if tied hand and foot, and could not utter a word, but blindly submitted to their brutal treatment, because too weak to resist. Aroused by the approaching sound of persons' voices, before I could get to my feet two horsemen in blue, armed with carbines, their sabers rattling, were almost up to me. In front of the two cavalrymen walking along, not like captured prisoners, but gayly laughing and talking with the mounted men, were my two comrades in arms--Lanyard and the baker.

I lay perfectly stunned. I dare not, I could not, move for an instant, when they quickly came almost abreast of me, and I jumped up so suddenly as to scare the nearest horse, so that it shied against its companion.

I spoke first, with the desperation of an outlaw challenging a helpless traveler: "Are you Union or Confederate?"

Before he could answer my question, which had been put as pointedly as if demanding money or life, Lanyard, with a shout of pleased surprise, came over to me, saying:

"Bully for us! We are all right, my old chum," and, turning to the cavalryman, who seemed to be getting ready for a combat or a conspiracy, he said:

"This is my old chum that I was telling about," then turning to me, for I was not yet fully satisfied in my own mind--"Why, in h--, didn't you tell me, so that we could come together?"

Then, after seeing that I was indeed O. K. at last, and, sure enough, under the guard of the troopers of the United States Army, I was ready for an Indian dance, even though I was so tired that my legs would scarcely carry me along.

The youngest of the troopers was a handsome boy of about nineteen or twenty, who informed me that he was a Kentuckian, and one of the company of Kentucky Cavalryman in the Union Army.

I hope this young chap and his companion are living yet somewhere in the beautiful blue-grass region of Kentucky, and that they may see this book, and will be kind enough to give me their present address.

[Illustration: "ARE YOU UNION OR CONFEDERATE?"]

CHAPTER XXIII.

RETURN HOME FROM CUMBERLAND GAP--MEETING WITH PARSON BROWNLOW ON HIS TRIP TO WASHINGTON.

I knew by that particular instinct, born of a soldier's daily experience of months among his own kind, that the two Cavalrymen I had seen coming up the road toward me were not from the army I had just left, or I should have kept quiet. Probably it was because I remembered, at the first glance of them, that I had not seen any such looking troopers in the Rebel Army, either about the Gap or in the interior country beyond, through which I had so recently traveled miles on horseback.

After some "mutual explanations and introductions," with a general hand-shaking all around, wherein it was laughingly agreed among them that my Jack Shepard manner of jumping out of a bush to demand satisfaction was a good joke--on my part--as they supposed it, I "fell in" with Lanyard and Baker, and we marched on ahead of the two cavalrymen toward the Union camp. Though I was tired and well-nigh exhausted, I walked ahead so briskly and stepped out so joyously that I was almost keeping the horses on a trot to keep up with us. This fact elicited from the older of the Kentucky cavalrymen an observation to his comrade that comprised about all the words that I remember to have heard him speak while in his company:

"My h--, don't that fellow travel!"

I am not prepared to say whether the renewed motive power was supplied through a fear of the Rebels coming after us in force, or a wild desire to get to a place where the blue soldiers were to be seen in greater numbers.

As we walked along together, Lanyard gave me a minute and funny account of the manner in which my disappearance was accounted for by my late companions in arms at the Gap.

"Well, by G--! I never thought you were a real Yankee. Why didn't you say something to me before? I was your best friend always, you sucker."

Then, with a loud laugh and a slap on my tired back that nearly knocked me off my feet, he made a break for the little, fat Dutch baker.

"Say, Baker, ain't you just playing off as a Dutchman? Come now; let's hear you talk plain United States. You are in a free country."

The baker had suddenly dodged to the other side of the road when the hilarious Lanyard readied his ponderous claws toward him, and only grinned back, in broad Dutch, his reply to the suggestion. After a little more of this sort of sky-larking, as he called it, he cooled down sufficiently to talk in a more rational way, but kept on using, by way of emphasis, as Parson Brownlow would say, "Good mouth-filling oaths, that would blister a sailor's lips."

"Why, blank it--I only shipped with this gang of pirates until we could reach some civilized port where I could get ashore amongst white people."

Lanyard was opposed to "d----d niggers," and had somehow become full of the contrary notion, that the South was fighting to retain the colored population, and the North wished to free them, merely that they could be sent, as he said, "back to Africa, where they belong."

"You were not missed from camp last night until it was time to turn in; the duffer that was on watch up on the volcano back there reported to his partner, who took his place, that you had said you were sick, and had gone down to the house below to get a hot supper, so he told him not to shoot at you when you came in to roost.

"Our old chum, the Colonel, you know, he got excited because you didn't show up, so he had to turn us out to go down to the old house to fetch you in. I told him it was no use; that you would be too drunk to walk up the hill; but he made me take a mate out of our mess, and started us out after you. We couldn't get by the watchman. We told the blasted fool that we had to go down the hill to find you, but he kept fooling with his gun, and swore he'd sink us if we tried to run out of port.

"Pretty soon the racket and loud talk brought an officer and a whole gang of fellows on to us, and we were taken into the guard-house. We had to stay there half the night before any of our fellows came to help us out; then the Colonel and Elkton figured around and, by a lot of talking, they were allowed to take us back to our shanty to finish the rest of the night.

"Now I wanted to get out of that country and go to New York, terrible bad, but, by G--, I never would have thought of going down into that wood to find a path to New York. I was just going to wait until the Yankees came up to fight us, and then I was going right out to join them in spite of h--; but I wanted to see them first. Well, while we were in the guard-house that night, and our Lieutenant was talking with the other officer about getting us out, I heard them say something about your 'being in the Yankee camp before we started after you.' This set me thinking about your being there and me left in the Rebel guard-house.

"On the way back to our shanty, I asked the Lieutenant if he thought you were captured by the Yanks, and he said:

"Oh, no! he's got lost, and will turn up all right when it gets daylight."