e wade through the creek
here, sis miles out of his way? Why not go straight on by the road?' I
asked.

'Because he knew the dog would track him, and he hoped by taking to the
run to make me think he had crossed the country instead of striking for
the railroad.'

I felt sure the Colonel was wrong, but knowing him to be tenacious of
his own opinions, I made no further objection.

Directing Sandy to call on Madam P---- and acquaint her with our
progress, he then dismissed the negro-hunter, and we once more turned
our horses up the road.

The next twenty miles, like our previous route, lay through an unbroken
forest, but as we left the water-courses, we saw nothing but the gloomy
pines, which there--the region being remote from the means of
transportation--were seldom tapped, and presented few of the openings
that invite the weary traveler to the dwelling of the hospitable
planter.

After a time the sky, which had been bright and cloudless all the
morning, grew overcast and gave out tokens of a coming storm. A black
cloud gathered in the west, and random flashes darted from it far off in
the distance; then gradually it neared us; low mutterings sounded in the
air, and the tops of the tall pines a few miles away, were lit up now
and then with a fitful blaze, all the brighter for the deeper gloom that
succeeded. Then a terrific flash and peal broke directly over us, and a
great tree, struck by a red-hot bolt, fell with a deafening crash,
half-way across our path. Peal after peal followed, and then the
rain--not filtered into drops as it falls from our colder sky, but in
broad, blinding sheets, poured full and heavy on our shelterless heads.

'Ah! there it comes!' shouted the Colonel. 'God have mercy upon us!'

Suddenly a crashing, crackling, thundering roar rose above the storm,
filling the air, and shaking the solid earth till it trembled beneath
our horses' feet, as if upheaved by a volcano. Nearer and nearer the
sound came, till it seemed that all the legions of darkness were
unloosed in the forest, and were mowing down the great pines as the
mower mows the grass with big scythe. Then an awful, sweeping crash
thundered directly at our backs, and turning round, as if to face a
foe, my horse, who had borne the roar and the blinding flash till then,
unmoved, paralyzed with dread, and panting for breath, sunk to the
ground; while close at my side the Colonel, standing erect in his
stirrups, his head uncovered to the