The long, cold winter of 1870, which froze all the fowls except the six sad roosters, and followed the failure of the potato and corn crops, was also disastrous to the bees. The hives had increased to a fine long row in the years that followed the capture of the first swarm discovered by Tumbler, the bear, and the honey had been a welcome addition to the soldiers\' simple fare; but the cold weather had destroyed every swarm, leaving only bee-bread and some half-consumed old combs from which the dead bees had fallen in a dry mass upon the bench below.

While Coleman and Bromley were engaged in planting, Philip was making an effort to find a new bee-tree. He had noticed some bees buzzing about the wild flowers on the ridge by the old flagging-station, and he determined to "line" them by a method he had seen his uncle practise when he was a boy in Ohio. He made a little box with a sliding cover, into which he put a small honeycomb, and taking the old yellow rooster under one arm for company,—or perhaps for luck,—he went over to where the flowers grew near the northern end of the plateau. He set down the old rooster on the ground, and opened the box on a stone in front of him, and waited, watching his bait. It was something like fishing in the old mill-pond, of which he had once been fond, and he found a singular fascination about watching the opening in the box as he used to watch his bobber. The June weather on the mountain was like May in the Ohio valley, and the sweet smell of the flowers carried his mind back to his old home. He had no longer to wait for the first nibble than he had waited in the old days for the first stir of his cork and the spreading ring on the water. A bee lighted on the lid and then made his way down into the box. After loading his legs with honey, the bee reappeared, and rising into the air, flew away to the south. Philip followed the small insect with his eyes, and then, picking up the old rooster, he came on for a hundred yards in the same direction, and set his bait as before. This time he had two bees in his box, and when they had loaded themselves they flew away in the same direction as the first. They disappeared so soon above the tree-tops that he thought the swarm was not far away; but every time he advanced, the loaded bees continued to fly south, until he had moved the paralyzed old rooster by easy stages the whole length of the plateau; and the bees, which came in greater numbers now, rose into the air and flew in a "bee-line" over the top of the southern cliff.

Philip was disgusted at this result of his bee-hunt, as any fisherman, after wading to his middle in a cold river to humor a fine trout, might be, to lose his victim at last in the foaming rapids; but he knew to a certainty that there was a bee-tree somewhere beyond the thus far unscalable southern cliff.

For the present the vision of honey was abandoned, and the economy of the camp, where food was now alarmingly low, was cunningly exercised to discover edible things in lieu of the corn, which, after the planting, was all stored in the nine gunny-sacks which had fallen from the balloon. The sacks were piled one upon another in a small heap behind the hopper in the mill, and the six sad roosters had to shift for themselves as best they could, except the old fellow who was paralyzed, and for him they gathered grubs and worms, and saved the crumbs that fell from the table.

It appeared possible to the minds of the soldiers that the liver-colored slabs of fungus which grew out of the sides of the chestnut-trees and the birches might be as palatable and nourishing as mushrooms. They broke off one of these pieces one day, which was shaped like the half of an inverted saucer, and was moist and clammy on the under side. They had a suspicion that such things were poison. They had never heard of any one eating the like, and after they had stewed it in their camp-kettle, inviting as its odor was, they sniffed and hesitated and feared to taste it. In the end they shook their heads, and spilled the contents of the kettle on the ground, where as soon as their backs were turned Tumbler and the five sad roosters fell to devouring the rejected food.

When the soldiers discovered what their domestic animals were about, the bear was licking his chops and the old roosters were waltzing about in the grass picking up the last morsels of the feast. They regretted their carelessness, and rather expected that before night the old paralyzed rooster would be their only living companion on the mountain.

When, however, the bear and the five sad roosters survived the test, and seemed rather to flourish on the new food, the soldiers took heart, and found the fungus not only good, but so much like meat that it was quite startling to their vegetarian palates.

After eating all of this peculiar food-product that grew on the plateau, they gleaned the field above the deep gorge, and as a last resort they made a hunting expedition to the half-acre of rocks and brambles where they had found the mica. Terrible as the passage through the cavern had at first seemed to the mind of Lieutenant Coleman, the lapse of time and a better acquaintance with the interior of the subterraneous tunnel made it but a commonplace covered way to the field of mica. Not that the soldiers had any further use for the mineral wealth which was so lavishly strewn among the rocks. It was as valueless to them now as the button-hook found in the hand-bag of alligator-skin. To go now and then through the underground passage, however, if only for the purpose of looking at the world outside from the view-point of their newest territorial possession, was a temptation which no landed proprietors could resist. The little shelf afforded them a glimpse to the south of the Cove road, which on account of certain intervening trees was not to be had from the plateau above. Several cabins could be seen smoking in the small clearings which surrounded them, but since the telescope had gone into the avalanche with Philip there was but poor satisfaction in looking at them.

They found a single piece of the liver-colored fungus growing on the root of a half-decayed old chestnut, and even this they regarded as well worth their journey. They spent some time wandering about the mica shelf, and when Lieutenant Coleman and Philip were boring their torches into the ground, one after the other, to rid them of the dead coal, and getting ready for the start back, Bromley, who had been poking about among the rocks, called to them in a tone of voice that indicated a pretty important discovery in the stone line. He was down on his hands and knees on the turf, boring his toes into the soil, and as his comrades approached him, he exclaimed:

"I haven\'t touched it yet. Just come here and look!"

"HE WAS DOWN ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES UPON THE TURF."
"HE WAS DOWN ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES UPON THE TURF."

Naturally, Coleman and Philip thought he had found some curious reptile. Instead, however, of this being the case, Bromley was kneeling over a scrap of newspaper which was impaled on a dead twig under the shelter of a rock where neither the sun nor the rain could reach it. The torn fragment was scarcely larger than the palm of one\'s hand, and snugly as it was now protected from the weather, it was yellow from former exposure, and the print was much faded, so that parts of it were illegible. It was possible, however, to decipher enough of the small advertisements on the exposed side to show that it was a Charleston paper, and they knew of course that it must have come by the balloon almost a year before. Undoubtedly it had lain for a long time on the plateau above, exposed to the storms, before the wind had tossed it over the cliff and landed it in such a wonderful way on the twig under the cover of the rock.

On the reverse side most of the print was fairly legible. The scrap was torn from the top of the paper, and had on it a capital G, which was the only letter left of the name of the paper. The line below read: "September [date of month gone], 18-0." The center column was headed:


"FOREIGN WORLD

"The Hon. Charles Snowden, M.P., goes down with his
yacht—Earthquake in Spain; four distinct shocks felt—No
dam——e done—Movement of specie

"London, September 4. The steam-yacht of the
Honorable Charles Snowden, M.P., which was wrecked
yesterday off the old Head of Kinsale on the south coast of
Ireland, was this morning looted by thieves. The ri——,
plate, carpets, upholstery, and fittings, as well as
quantity of storage, sails, and stores, were taken. Lights
were seen from the mainland at two o\'clock this morning,
when a heavy sea was running.

"Later. The Hon. Charles Snowden and the first officer
of the boat lost their lives by the swamping of the
raft on which they had embarked.

"Madrid, September 4. Four distinct shocks of an
earthquake this morning were felt in the province
of Granada, in the south of Spain. Coming as t
shocks have, twenty-four hours later than the
ances reported on the coast of Italy by y
    ws, would indicate that the disturbance
        No damage is reported. In
                from the vineyards."


What remained of the right-hand column bore, to the soldiers, these surprising words, in sentences and parts of sentences:


"Local Happenings—Charleston—
R. E. Lee as General—Sherman at the War Office

"The controversy just concluded between the Couri
Mercury on the strategic merits of the two command
developed nothing new. The Sherman cam
ending at the city of Atlanta
ably discussed and with
justice to the dead comma
The great March to the Sea, b
More brilliant achievement
of the war and its
in another colum
South is satisfie
happy endin"


When Coleman and Philip caught the first glimpse of the scrap of paper, tattered and yellow, they believed it to be some fragment of the Blue Book which they themselves had discarded. The exposed surface was almost as free of print as if it had been treated with potash, and looked as insignificant as a dried leaf or a section of corn-husk. Bromley, on the other hand, had examined it more closely, and just as Coleman began to laugh at him, he put out his hand and removed the scrap of paper from the twig which held it fast; and as he turned it over to the light, he was nearly as much surprised as his companions.

The three were down on their knees in an instant, eagerly devouring the words of the head-lines; and Philip being on the right, it happened that his eyes were the first to fall on the name of General Sherman.

"\'Sherman at the War Office\'!" he cried. "What does that mean?"

"It means we have been deceived," said Coleman. "I—"

"Hurrah!" cried Philip, leaping up and dancing about until the rags of his tattered clothing fluttered in the sunlight. "Hurrah! Uncle Billy is alive! He never was killed at all! If that message was false, they were all false—all lies! lies! What fools we have been! We must leave the mountain to-morrow—to-night."

"We have been the victims of an infamous deception," exclaimed Lieutenant Coleman. "Let us go back to the house at once, and determine what is to be done."

Against this undue haste Bromley remonstrated feebly, for he himself was laboring under unusual excitement. His eyes were so dimmed by a suffusion of something very like tears—tears of anger—that he could read no further for the moment, and he put the paper carefully into his pocket, and picked up his torch and followed his comrades sulkily into the cavern.

Upon Bromley\'s peculiar character this new revelation had a depressing effect. He still entertained doubts. If the new hope was finally realized, his joy would be as deep and sincere as that of the others. For the present, the thought that they might have been deceived all along angered him. He had an inclination to stop even then and examine the paper more fully by torch-light; but the underground passage was long, and the pine-knot he carried was burning low. He felt obliged to hasten on after Coleman and Philip, who were now considerably in advance. They were still in view, however, and as he held the torch to one side that which he saw far up the narrowing cavern had a softening effect on his conflicting emotions. He even laughed at the grotesque exhibition; for the small figures of Coleman and Philip were dancing and hugging each other and dashing their torches against the rocks in a way that made them look like mad salamanders in the circling flames and sparks.

Such reckless enthusiasm was a condition of mind which George could not understand; but the possibility occurred to him that in their wild excitement they might set fire to the house as a beacon-light to the people in the valley; for they could never get away from the plateau without help from beyond the deep gorge.

To prevent, if possible, any rash action on the part of his more excited comrades, Bromley hurried his pace, and, in the effort to overtake them, soon found himself leaping over obsta............