e in his hands. How, again, could a junction
be effected in the face of a superior enemy, liable to fall upon either
column and crush it?

Obviously the first thing was to find a messenger.

Garfield applied to Col. Moore of the Fourteenth Kentucky, and made
known his need.

"Have you a man," he asked, "who will die rather than fail or betray
us?"

"Yes," answered the Kentuckian, after a pause, "I think I have. His name
is John Jordan, and he comes from the head of the Blaine."

This was a small stream which entered the Big Sandy, a short distance
from the town.

At the request of Garfield, Jordan was sent for. In a short time he
entered the tent of the Union commander.

This John Jordan was a remarkable man, and well known in all that
region. He was of Scotch descent, and possessed some of the best traits
of his Scotch ancestry. He was a born actor, a man of undoubted courage,
fertile in expedients, and devoted to the Union cause.

Garfield was a judge of men, and he was impressed in the man's favor at
first sight. He describes Jordan as a tall, gaunt, sallow man, about
thirty years of age, with gray eyes, a fine falsetto voice, and a face
of wonderful expressiveness. To the young colonel he was a new type of
man, but withal a man whom he was convinced that he could trust.

"Why did you come into this war?" he asked, with some curiosity.

"To do my share, colonel, and I've made a bargain with the Lord. I gave
Him my life to start with, and if He has a mind to take it, it's His.
I've nothing to say agin it."

"You mean you have come into the war, not expecting to get out of it
alive?"

"Yes, colonel."

"You know what I want you to do. Will you die rather than let this
dispatch be taken?"

"I will."

Garfield looked into the man's face, and he read unmistakable sincerity.

He felt that the man could be trusted, and he said so.

The dispatch was written upon tissue paper. It was then rolled into the
form of a bullet, coated with warm lead, and given into the hands of the
messenger. He was provided with a carbine and a brace of revolvers, and
when the moon was down, he mounted his horse in the darkness and set out
on his perilous journey.

It would not do to ride in the daytime, for inevitably he would be
stopped, or shot down. By day he must hide in the woods, and travel only
at night.

His danger was increased by the treachery of one of his own comrades of
the Fourteenth Kentucky, and he was fol