progress of
events with keen interest.

The cart finally started for the exit, and several of us made our way to
a good point of observation.

By the time the vehicle had reached the gate the jolting over the rough
ground, and the captain's breathing, had settled the leaves until, like
the ostrich, the occupants felt secure with their heads covered, but
were exposing telltale signs of their presence. McCauley's knees
appeared above the leaves like mountain peaks above the timber, while
the captain's stomach just showed, like the back of a porpoise above the
water as he plunges.

An officer at the gate surveyed the cart, and we expected to see our
friends hauled out, but he only smiled grimly and said not a word, while
the cart proceeded on its way to the ravine.

We looked at each other in astonishment, and we could see the captain's
stomach give an extra heave, evidently with a sigh of relief.

Our astonishment was soon changed to amusement as the officer spurred
his horse toward the cart, and then stood quietly by, with a smile on
his face, as the driver backed up to the ravine and prepared to dump the
cart. A creak, a rush, a cloud of leaves and dust, a glimpse of two
tumbling figures, and we saw our friends sitting in the bottom of the
ravine, looking up wonderingly at the smiling officer on the bank, who
said to them:

"Well, boys, where are you going?"

"To Camp Ford," replied Armstrong; "will you be kind enough to show us
the way?"

"Certainly; will you ride or walk?" said the officer, pointing to the
waiting cart and the grinning driver.

"Thank you, but we'll walk if it is not too far," was the answer, and
the two men limped back to the stockade, good-naturedly smiling at the
laughter and jokes which greeted them from such of the inmates as had
witnessed the escapade.

For some little time past I had been feeling miserable, my limbs
swelling as if with dropsy and my appetite being very poor. I had begun
to fear that I was likely to die, when Hiram Pratt, one of the members
of my company, proposed a course of treatment which he claimed to have
seen used with success in similar cases. After deciding to try his
remedy, I was helped to the spring, disrobed and had the cold spring
water poured slowly on my back for a few minutes. Almost instantly I
felt some relief, and, with a daily repetition of the treatment, I soon
became myself again. The cure was so complete that for fourteen months I
was entirel