sure to come off--is it?"

"Certainly, unless Hunter comes and countermands the order."

Alas, for human calculations! General Hunter arrived before midnight.
Two o'clock came, but no orders to break camp. Daylight, and no orders
to march. Breakfast-time, and not a hostile shot had been heard. Nine
o'clock, and no skirmish. Twelve o'clock, and no battle.

General Fremont and staff returned to St. Louis. General Hunter made
a reconnoissance to Wilson Creek, and ascertained that the only enemy
that had been in the vicinity was a scouting party of forty or fifty
men. At the time we were to march out, there was not a Rebel on the
ground. Their whole army was still at Cassville, fifty-five miles from
Springfield.

On the 9th of November the army evacuated Springfield and returned to
the line of the Pacific Railway.

General Fremont's scouts had deceived him. Some of these individuals
were exceedingly credulous, while others were liars of the highest
grade known to civilization. The former obtained their information
from the frightened inhabitants; the latter manufactured theirs with
the aid of vivid imaginations. I half suspect the fellows were like
the showman in the story, and, at length, religiously believed what
they first designed as a hoax. Between the two classes of scouts a
large army of Rebels was created.

The scouting service often develops characters of a peculiar mould.
Nearly every man engaged in it has some particular branch in which he
excels. There was one young man accompanying General Fremont's army,
whose equal, as a special forager, I have never seen elsewhere.
Whenever we entered camp, this individual, whom I will call the
captain, would take a half-dozen companions and start on a foraging
tour. After an absence of from four to six hours, he would return
well-laden with the spoils of war. On one occasion he brought to camp
three horses, two cows, a yoke of oxen, and a wagon. In the latter
he had a barrel of sorghum molasses, a firkin of butter, two sheep, a
pair of fox-hounds, a hoop-skirt, a corn-sheller, a baby's cradle, a
lot of crockery, half a dozen padlocks, two hoes, and a rocking-chair.
On the next night he returned with a family carriage drawn by a horse
and a mule. In the carriage he had, among other things, a parrot-cage
which contained a screaming parrot, several pairs of ladies' shoes,
a few yards of calico, the stock of an old musket, part of a
spinning-wheel, and a box of garden se