e value of Confederate scrip.

As the time drew near when my companion, according to agreement, was
to ride boldly to the river, I stepped down to take a look at his
unused flat. He, of course, walked with me. While standing with my
foot upon the end of his boat, I heard the tramp of the horses, and
said to him, in a quiet tone--"Here is an eagle; you must take me
and my companion over." He remonstrated, and could not risk his life
for that, &c. Another ten dollars was demanded and paid, the horses
were in the flat, and in two minutes we were off for--home.

During that dark and uncertain voyage, I had time not only to coax
into quietness my restive horse, but also to conclude that it would
never do to dismiss our Charon on the other bank, as half an hour
might put on our track a squad of cavalry, who, in our ignorance of
the roads and country, would soon return us to Rebeldom and a rope.
A man who would take twenty dollars for twenty minutes' work, after
swearing 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