the release of the Unionists captured on the boat which the rebels had burned at Carson Landing, and who had been sent to the rebel jail at Deer Creek, if they were guaranteed their own release in exchange.  They offered to bear the expense of a messenger to the rebel officer, at Deer Creek, with this proposition.  The Union officer at Helena accepted the proposition, and the messenger was sent off.  It was arranged that he should stop over at our house, both on his way down and back.  Upon his return, he stopped over night, and the next morning proceeded on his way.  When he had gone about five miles, he saw a flat-boat at a landing, on which were people drinking and having a merry time.  He stopped, and went aboard; and, in joining the carousal, he soon became so intoxicated that he was unable to go on with his journey.  Among those present was one Gilcrease, a cousin of the McGees, who recognized the man as the messenger in this important business, went to him and asked him for the letters he carried.  The fellow refusing to give them up, Gilcrease took them from him, and at once sent to our overseer for a reliable man by whom to forward them to the commandant at Helena.  The overseer called me up from the cabin to his room, and told me that I was to go to Helena to carry some important papers, and to come to him for them in the morning, and make an early start.  I left him and went back to my cabin.

* * * * *

My third effort for freedom.

I made up my mind that this would be a good chance for me to run away.  I got my clothes, and put them in an old pair of saddle bags—­two bags made of leather, connected with a strip of leather, and used when traveling horseback for the same purpose as a satchel is used in traveling in the cars.  I took these bags, carried them about a half mile up the road, and hid them in a fence corner, where I could get them in the morning when I had started on my trip.  Fryer’s Point, the place to which I was to go, was about fifty miles from the farm.  I started early in the morning, and, after I had gone twenty-five miles, I came to the farm of William McGee, a brother of the madam, and stopped to change horses.  I found that William McGee was going, in the morning, down to old Master Jack’s; so I took one of their horses, leaving mine to use in its place, went right to Fryer’s Point, delivered the letters to a man there to carry to Helena, and got back to William McGee’s farm that night.  I made up my mind to go with William down to Panola, where madam was, to tell her about Boss being captured.  The next morning, he started, and Gibson, his overseer and myself accompanied him.  He questioned me about the capture of Boss, what the soldiers had done, etc., and I told him all I knew of the matter.  “Well, Lou,” he said, “why did you not bring us some whisky?” “I did bring a little with me,” I said.  He laughed, saying:  “Oh, well, when we come to some