"Good-morning," I murmured.

"Good-morning," he responded, tardily and grimly. "Well, you air in a hurry."

"Not at all, sir. I\'m sorry to seem so; it\'s not the tip-top of courtesy,--"

"No, it ain\'t too stinkin\' polite."

"True; but neither are the enemy, and they\'re early risers, you know."

"Well, good Lord! don\'t hang back for my sake!"

I put on an offended esteem. "My dear sir, you\'ve no call to take offence at me. I\'m waiting because my business is too--well, if I must explain, it\'s--it\'s too important to be risked except by good safe daylight; that\'s all."
Well, you air in a hurry!

Oh, he wasn\'t taking offence. His reptile temper crawled into hiding, and when I said day was breaking, he said he would show me my way.

"Why, I keep the plain road, don\'t I?"

No, he would not; only wagons went that way, to cross the creek by a small bridge. I could cut off nearly two miles by taking the bridle-path that turned sharply down into the thick woods of the creek-bottom about a quarter of a mile from the house and crossed the stream at a sandy ford. "Ride round," he said, "and I\'ll show you from the front of the house."

Thence he pointed out a distant sycamore looming high against the soft dawn. There was the fence-corner at which the bridle-path left the road. He icily declined pay for my lodging. "We never charge a Confederate soldier for anything; that\'s not our way."

Day came swiftly. By the time I could trot down to the sycamore it was perfectly light even in the shade of an old cotton-gin house close inside the corner of the small field around which I was to turn. The vast arms of its horse-power press, spreading rigidly downward, offered the only weird aspect that lingered in the lovely morning. I have a later and shuddering memory of it, but now the dewy air was full of sweet odors, the squirrel barked from the woods, the woodpecker tapped, and the lark, the cardinal and the mocking-bird were singing all around. The lint-box of the old cotton-press was covered with wet morning-glories. I took the bridle-path between the woods and the field and very soon was down in the dense forest beyond them. But the moment I was hid from house and clearing I turned my horse square to the left, stooped to his neck, and made straight through the pathless tangle.

Silence was silver this time, speed was golden. But every step met its obstacle; there were low boughs, festoons of long-moss, bushes, briers, brake-cane, mossy logs, snaky pools, and things half fallen and held dead. If at any point on the bridle-path, near the stream, some cowpath, footpath, any trail whatever, led across to the road, my liers-in-wait were certainly guarding it and would rush to the road by that way as soon as they found I was flanking them. And so I strove on at the best speed I could make, and burst into the road with a crackle and crash that might have been heard a hundred yards away. One glance up the embowered alley, one glance down it, and I whirled to the right, drove in the spur, and flew for the bridge. A wild minute so--a turn in the road--no one in sight! Two minutes--another turn--no one yet! Three--three--another turn--no one in front, no one behind--

The thunder of our own hoofs   Was all the sound we heard.

A fourth turn and no one yet! A fifth--more abrupt than the others--and there--here--yonder now behind--was the path I had feared, but no one was in it, and the next instant the bridge flashed into view. With a great clatter I burst upon it, reached the middle, glanced back, and dropped complacently into a trot. Tame ending if--but as I looked forward again, what did I see? A mounted man. At the other end of the bridge, in the shade of overhanging trees, he moved into view, and well I knew the neat fit of that butternut homespun. He flourished a revolver above his head and in a drunken voice bade me halt.

I halted; not making a point of valor or discretion, but because he was Charlotte Oliver\'s husband. I read his purpose and listened behind me as we parleyed. "Don\'t halt me, sir, I\'m a courier and in a hurry."

He hiccoughed. "Let\'s--s\'--see y\' orders."

I took my weapon into my bridle-hand by the barrel and began to draw from my bosom the empty envelope addr............