rce. He ran swiftly
into a cross street, and when they followed him there he leaped over
the low fence of a lawn, surrounding a great house, darted into the
shrubbery, and the four, although they were joined by others, brought
by the alarm, sought for him in vain.

"After all, I'm not sorry he got away," said Colonel Talbot, as they
walked back to Madame Delaunay's. "There is no war, and hence, in a
military sense, there can be no spies. I doubt whether we should have
known what to do with him had we caught him, but I am certain that he
has complete maps of all our defenses."

Harry, with Arthur and many others whom he knew, started the next day
for Montgomery. Jefferson Davis had already been chosen President,
and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President, and Davis was on his way
from his Mississippi home to the same town to be inaugurated. In the
excitement over the great event, so near at hand, Harry forgot all about
Shepard and his doubts. He bade a regretful farewell to Charleston,
which had taken him to its heart, and turned his face to this new place,
much smaller, and, as yet, without fame.

Harry, Arthur, and their older friends began the momentous journey
across the land of King Cotton, passing through the very heart of the
lower South, as they went from Charleston to Montgomery. Davis and
Stephens would be inaugurated on the 17th of that month, which was
February. But the Palmetto Guards would arrive at Montgomery before
Davis himself, who had left his home and who would cross Mississippi,
Alabama, and a corner of Georgia before he reached the new capital to
receive the chief honor.

Trains were slow and halting, and Harry had ample opportunity to see
the land and the people who crowded to the stations to bring news or to
hear it. He crossed a low, rolling country with many rivers, great and
small. He saw large houses, with white-pillared porticos, sitting back
among the trees, and swarms of negro cabins. Much of the region was yet
dead and brown from the touch of winter, but in the valleys the green
was appearing. Spring was in the air, and the spirits of the Palmetto
Guards, nearly all of whom were very young, were rising with it.

The train drew into Montgomery, the little city that stood on the high
banks of the Alabama River. Here they were in the very heart of the
new Confederacy, and Harry and Arthur were eager to see the many famous
Southern men who were gathered there to welcome the new