's horse was gone, he knew not where; so he went into the
country on foot in search of Lee's army, looking back now and then at
the lost city under the black pall of smoke. While there, he had
retained a hope that Lee would come and retake it, but he had none now.
When the Stars and Bars went down on the dome of the Capitol it seemed
to him that the sun of the Confederacy set with it. But still he had a
vague idea of rejoining Lee and fighting to the last; just why he did
not understand; but the blind instinct was in him.

He did not know where Lee had gone and he learned that the task of
finding him was far easier in theory than in practice. The Northern
armies seemed to be on all sides of Richmond as well as in it, to
encircle it with a ring of steel; and Prescott passed night after night
in the woods, hiding from the horsemen in blue who rode everywhere. He
found now and then food at some lone farmhouse, and heard many reports,
particularly of Sheridan, who, they said, never slept, but passed his
days and nights clipping down the Southern army. Lee, they would say,
was just ahead; but when Prescott reached "just ahead" the General was
not there. Lee always seemed to be fleeing away before him.

Spring rushed on with soft, warm winds and an April day broke up in
rain. The night was black, and Prescott, lost in the woods, seeking
somewhere a shelter, heard a sound which he knew to be the rumble of a
train. Hope sprang up; where there was a train there was a railroad, and
a railroad meant life. He pushed on in the direction whence the sound
came, cowering before the wind and the rain, and at last saw a light. It
might be Yankees or it might not be Yankees, but Prescott now did not
care which, intent as he was upon food and shelter.

The light led him at last to an unpainted, one-room shanty in the woods
by the railroad track, a telegraph station. Prescott stared in at the
window and at the lone operator, a lank youth of twenty, who started
back when he saw the unshorn and ghastly face at the window. But he
recovered his coolness in a moment and said:

"Come in, stranger; I guess you're a hungry Reb."

Prescott entered, and the lank youth, without a word, took down some
crackers and hard cheese from a shelf.

"Eat it all," he said; "you're welcome."

Prescott ate voraciously and dried his clothing before the fire in a
little stove.

The telegraph instrument on a table in a corner kept up a monotonous
ticking, to