Day after day Barney skirted furtively about the uncompromising walls of Libby and Castle Thunder, where once or twice he had gone with his hosts to make a mental diagram of the place for future use.  Little by little he became familiar with Richmond, which, like a new bride, gave the visitor welcome to admire her splendid spouse, the Confederate government.  He learned all the plots of the prison, and became the confidant of Letitia Lanview, known to every exile in Richmond as the friend of the suffering—­St. Veronica she was called—­after a poem dedicated to her by a young Harvard graduate, rescued by her perseverance from death in Libby Prison.  With this lady he drove all about the environs of Richmond, and several times far out toward the meditated route of flight, in order that he might be able to lead the bewildered refugees.  He got the whole landscape by heart, and could have led a battalion over it in the dark.  Then he passed days wandering over the Libby Hill, down in the bed of the “Rockets,” as the bed of the James was known in those days; he learned the ground to the very beat of the patrols that guarded the wretched prisoners in the towering shambles.  One whole night, too, he spent in marking the course of the guards as they changed in two-hour reliefs.  With his facts well collected he visited Mrs. Lanview, and at last he was confronted by Butler’s agent.  This agent was a middle-aged man, who had evidently once been very handsome, but dissipation had left pitiable traces upon his fine features, and his once large, open eyes, that perplexingly suggested some one Barney tried in vain to recall—­vainly?  The man didn’t say much in the lady’s presence, but when the two were in the open air, facing toward the center of the town, he divulged a good deal that surprised Barney.

“You are from Acredale, young man.  I lived there when I was younger than I am now.  My name?  People call me a good many names.  I don’t mind at all, so that I have rum enough and a bed and a bite to eat.  No man can have more than that, my boy.  I am plain Dick Jones now.  It’s an easy name, and plenty of the same in the land; and if I should die suddenly there would be lots o’ folks to feel sorry, eh?  But as you are from Acredale I don’t mind telling you that it is Elisha Boone that foots the bill.  Butler is a friend of Boone’s, and he has given me authority to summon all the troops within reach to my aid.  My business is to carry young Wes Boone to Fort Monroe.  Butler doesn’t know that.  He thinks I am spying Jeff Davis and piping for the prisoners.  He didn’t say that he wanted me to kill Davis, but if we could carry him to Fort Monroe, my boy, there’d be about a million dollars swag to divide!  How does that strike you?”

“It doesn’t strike me at all.  I think it is for the interest of the Union that Davis should be where he is.  He is vain, arrogant, silly, and dull.  He will alone wreck the rebel cause if he is given time.  There couldn’t be a greater misfortune for the North than to have Davis displaced by some one of real ability, such as Stephens, Lee, Benjamin, Mason, Breckenridge, or, in fact, any of the men identified with secession.”