eks is up now, an' it's sort o'
hard to git erlong through down yonder way if you don't know the way
toller'ble well?"

"Yes, he knows the way too--every foot of it--and a good deal more than
you'll see of it if you don't look out."

"Oh! That road down that way is sort o' stopped up," said the man, as if
he were carrying on a connected narrative and had not heard him. "They's
soldiers on it too a little fur'er down, and they's done got word you're
a-comin' that a-way."

"What's that?" they asked, sharply.

"Leastways it's stopped up, and I knows a way down this a-way in and
about as nigh as that," went on the speaker, in the same level voice.

"Where do you live?" they asked him.

"I lives back in the pines here a piece."

"How long have you lived here?"

"About twenty-three years, I b'leeves; 'ats what my mother says."

"You know all the country about here?"

"Ought to."

"Been in the army?"

"Ahn--hahn."

"What did you desert for?"

Darby looked at him leisurely.

"'D you ever know a man as 'lowed he'd deserted? I never did." A faint
smile flickered on his pale face.

He was taken to the camp before the commander, a dark, self-contained
looking man with a piercing eye and a close mouth, and there closely
questioned as to the roads, and he gave the same account he had already
given. The negro guide was brought up and his information tallied with
the new comer's as far as he knew it, though he knew well only the road
which they were on and which Darby said was stopped up. He knew, too,
that a road such as Darby offered to take them by ran somewhere down
that way and joined the road they were on a good distance below; but he
thought it was a good deal longer way and they had to cross a fork of
the river.

There was a short consultation between the commander and one or two
other officers, and then the commander turned to Darby, and said:

"What you say about the road's being obstructed this way is partly true;
do you guarantee that the other road is clear?"

Darby paused and reflected.

"I'll guide you," he said, slowly.

"Do you guarantee that the bridge on the river is standing and that we
can get across?"

"Hit's standing now, fur as I know."

"Do you understand that you are taking your life in your hand?"

Darby looked at him coolly.

"And that if you take us that way and for any cause--for any cause
whatsoever we fail to get through safe, we will hang you to the nearest
tree?"

D