that his conscience would not allow him to disobey the authorities, was not to be trusted out of your sight.  Standing near my companion, I whispered—­“This man must pilot us to some point you will know.”  I should have stated that this deserting soldier was within sixty miles of his home, and had some knowledge of the localities not far north from our present position.  With this purpose, I arranged, when we touched the bank, to be in the rear of the ferryman, and followed him as he stepped off the boat, to take breath before a return pull.  “Now, my good fellow,” said I, “you have done us one good turn for pay, you must do another for friendship.  We are strangers here, and you must take us to the foot of Waldon’s Ridge, and then we will release you.”  To this demand he demurred most vigorously; but my determined position between him and the boat, gentle words, and an eloquent exhibition of my six-shooter, the sheen of which the moonlight enabled him to perceive, soon ended the parley, and onward he moved.  We kept him in the road slightly ahead of us, with our horses on his two flanks, and chatted as sociably as the circumstances would permit.  I am not careful to justify this constrained service exacted of the ferryman, further than to say, that I was now visiting upon the head, or rather the legs, of a real Secessionist, for an hour or two, just what for many months they had inflicted upon me.  For six long miles we guarded our prisoner-pilot, and, reaching the foot of the mountain, the summit of which would reveal to my friend localities which he could recognize, and from which he could tell our bearings and distances, we called a halt.  After apologizing for our rudeness on the plea of self-preservation, and thanking him for his enforced service, we bade him good-night, not doubting that he would reach the river in time to ferry himself over before daylight, and console his frightened wife by the sight of the golden bribe.

We were now, at eleven o’clock at night, under the shadow of a dark mountain, and with no knowledge of the course we were to take, other than the general purpose of pressing northward.

After making some miles of headway and rising several hundred feet, we struck off at a right angle from the road, worked our way for a mile among the rocks, and tying our horses, lay down under an overhanging cliff and tried to sleep.  But I wooed Somnus in vain.  My brain and heart were too full.  On the verge of a Canaan, for which I had looked and struggled daring thirteen wearisome months, would I now reach it in peace, or must other perils be encountered, and I perhaps thrust back into a dungeon to meet a deserter’s fate?  The future was still uncertain, and my mind turned backward, recalling childhood’s joys and a mother’s undying love.  Oh, how I longed for one gentle caress from her soft hand to soothe me into sleep, and how vividly came back to my memory words committed long ago,—­words which, with slight change, tenderly expressed the longing of my spirit that night.  I sank into forgetfulness, repeating over and over those sweet strains: