between Grace and
Franklin Streets. He looked at the man. He was quite sober. His eyes
answered the young man's indignant protesting glance, openly,
unshrinkingly, humorously.

"I should be sorry to think that, Mr. Jones."

"Well, wait. When you get North you will see a mighty change in things.
Sentiment, my boy, follows the main chance. It's money, my boy, money.
Enough money would have made Judas respectable; he was fool enough to
put his price too low."

"Ugh!--you almost make me hate the North! Who can have heart to fight
for such heartless traffickers?"

"The North doesn't ask your heart. It has counted the cost, and finds
that it can pay a million of men thirteen dollars a month for three
years, and still make a good thing out of it--that's about the breadth
of it. Here's an oasis in the desert of darkness. Come and have
a drink?"

But Barney--not caring for a drink, the cynic--gave him his address,
and, dreadfully cast down in spirit, the eager partisan moped up the
long hill homeward. The next day Mrs. Lanview gave him the details of
the meditated escape. There were only sixty or a hundred in position to
avail themselves of the subterranean way that had been toilsomely dug,
by a few devoted spirits, with tools casually dropped among them by the
guileless Veronica during her daily visits. The plotters counted on at
least six hours' start before discovery. The guards were not to be
disturbed, and the evasion would not be known until eight o'clock, when
the miserable breakfast ration was distributed.

Of that amazing-exploit, the digging through twenty solid feet of earth
and stone, I do not propose to tell. It is to be found in the journals
of the day: it is contained in the hundred pathetic narratives of the
men who took part. It has nothing to do with this history beyond the use
made of it to mislead the ingenious Barney, and in the end complicate
the careers of those in whom we are interested. Suffice it, therefore,
to say that in the dim morning mist, as arranged, a shadowy host emerged
on the river-bottom, now dry and footable; that each man, as he crawled
from the pit, was directed into the thick willows bordering the banks;
that when six score or more had clambered out they obeyed a whispered
command, for which Veronica had prepared them, and noiselessly, in
shadowy single file, they followed the bed of the stream, even where the
water flowed deep and dangerous, until they came to the gentle slopes