“I reckon this won’t do,” he added, after patiently considering the matter.  “Just you tote this paper up to the corporal thar, and if he says it’s all right, you kin go on.”

“But I can’t stop to do all that.  Here’s my pass, and I want to go on.  My father may die before I get home.”

“What regiment do you b’long to?” asked the guard, who evidently did not wish to disoblige a fellow-soldier unnecessarily.

“The Second Virginia,” replied Tom, at a venture.

“Where does your father live?” continued the sentinel.

“Just beyond the Gap, if he’s living at all.”

“What town?”

Tom was nonplussed, for he did not know the name of a single place on the route before him; and, of course, he did not dare to answer the question.

“About five or six miles from here,” he answered.

“Is it Salem or White Plains?” demanded the soldier, whose cunning was inferior to his honesty.

“White Plains,” added Tom, promptly accepting the suggestion.

“What’s the matter with your father?”

“I don’t know; he was taken suddenly.”

“Pears like your uniform ain’t exactly our sort,” added the soldier.

“Mine was all used up, and I got one on the battle-field.”

“I wouldn’t do that.  It’s mean to rob a dead man of his clothes.”

“Couldn’t help it—­I was almost naked,” replied Tom, who perfectly agreed with the rebel on this point.

“You kin go on, Old Virginny,” said the soldier, whose kindly sympathy for Tom and his sick father was highly commendable.

The soldier boy thanked the sentinel for his permission, of which he immediately availed himself.  Tom did not yet realize the force of the maxim that “all is fair in war,” and his conscience gave a momentary twinge as he thought of the deception he had practised upon the honest and kind-hearted rebel.  He was very thankful that he had not been compelled to put a bullet through his head; but perhaps he was more thankful that the man had not been obliged to do him a similar favor.

The fugitive walked, with an occasional rest, till daylight the next morning.  He went through three or four small villages.  After passing through the Gap, he had taken the railroad, as less likely to lead him through the more thickly settled parts of the country.  Before him the mountains of the Blue Ridge rose like an impassable wall, and when the day dawned he was approaching Manassas Gap.  He had walked twenty-five miles during the night, and prudence, as well as fatigue, required him to seek a place of rest.

CHAPTER XX.

Down the Shenandoah.

In that wild mountain region, Tom had no difficulty in finding a secluded spot, where there was no probability that he would be molested.  He had been in a state of constant excitement during the night, for the country was full of soldiers.  The mountaineers of Virginia were rushing to the standard of rebellion.  They were a wild, rude set of men, and they made the night hideous with their debauchery.  Tom succeeded in keeping out of the way of the straggling parties which were roaming here and there; but he was filled with dread and anxiety lest he should, at the next moment, stumble upon a camp, or a squad of these marauders.