behind startled me.  Glancing to my left I saw a guard cocking his gun and bringing it up to shoot me.  With one frightened spring, as quick as a flash, and before he could cover me, I landed fully a rod back in the crowd, and mixed with it.  The fellow tried hard to draw a bead on me, but I was too quick for him, and he finally lowered his gun with an oath expressive of disappointment in not being able to kill a Yankee.

Walking back to my place the full ludicrousness of the thing dawned upon me so forcibly that I forgot all about my excitement and scare, and laughed aloud.  Here, not an hour age I was murmuring because I could find no way to die; I sighed for death as a bridegroom for the coming of his bride, an yet, when a Rebel had pointed his gun at me, it had nearly scared me out of a year’s growth, and made me jump farther than I could possibly do when my feet were well, and I was in good condition otherwise.

CHAPTER LII.

Savannah—­devices to obtain materials for A tent—­their ultimate success —­resumption of tunneling—­escaping by wholesale and being recaptured en masse—­the obstacles that lay between us and our lines.

Andrews and I did not let the fate of the boy who was killed, nor my own narrow escape from losing the top of my head, deter us from farther efforts to secure possession of those coveted boards.  My readers remember the story of the boy who, digging vigorously at a hole, replied to the remark of a passing traveler that there was probably no ground-hog there, and, even if there was, “ground-hog was mighty poor eatin’, any way,” with: 

“Mister, there’s got to be a ground-hog there; our family’s out o’ meat!”

That was what actuated us:  we were out of material for a tent.  Our solitary blanket had rotted and worn full of holes by its long double duty, as bed-clothes and tent at Andersonville, and there was an imperative call for a substitute.

Andrews and I flattered ourselves that when we matched our collective or individual wits against those of a Johnny his defeat was pretty certain, and with this cheerful estimate of our own powers to animate us, we set to work to steal the boards from under the guard’s nose.  The Johnny had malice in his heart and buck-and-ball in his musket, but his eyes were not sufficiently numerous to adequately discharge all the duties laid upon him.  He had too many different things to watch at the same time.  I would approach a gap in the fence not yet closed as if I intended making a dash through it for liberty, and when the Johnny had concentrated all his attention on letting me have the contents of his gun just as soon as he could have a reasonable excuse for doing