“He performed that promise.  He showed me the clothing, which I resolutely put on; the letters, which I put into my pocket.  He made no objection, then took me to the commandant, who heard my story and coldly ordered Briscoe to take me to the guardhouse.  On the way I said: 

“’Bill Briscoe, did you really and truly bury the dead body that you found in these togs?’

“‘Sure,’ he answered—­’just as I told you.  It was Dave Duck, all right; most of us knew him.  And now, you damned impostor, you’d better tell me who you are.’

“‘I’d give something to know,’ I said.

“A week later, I escaped from the guardhouse and got out of the country as fast as I could.  Twice I have been back, seeking for that fateful spot in the hills, but unable to find it.”

THREE AND ONE ARE ONE

In the year 1861 Barr Lassiter, a young man of twenty-two, lived with his parents and an elder sister near Carthage, Tennessee.  The family were in somewhat humble circumstances, subsisting by cultivation of a small and not very fertile plantation.  Owning no slaves, they were not rated among “the best people” of their neighborhood; but they were honest persons of good education, fairly well mannered and as respectable as any family could be if uncredentialed by personal dominion over the sons and daughters of Ham.  The elder Lassiter had that severity of manner that so frequently affirms an uncompromising devotion to duty, and conceals a warm and affectionate disposition.  He was of the iron of which martyrs are made, but in the heart of the matrix had lurked a nobler metal, fusible at a milder heat, yet never coloring nor softening the hard exterior.  By both heredity and environment something of the man’s inflexible character had touched the other members of the family; the Lassiter home, though not devoid of domestic affection, was a veritable citadel of duty, and duty—­ah, duty is as cruel as death!

When the war came on it found in the family, as in so many others in that State, a divided sentiment; the young man was loyal to the Union, the others savagely hostile.  This unhappy division begot an insupportable domestic bitterness, and when the offending son and brother left home with the avowed purpose of joining the Federal army not a hand was laid in his, not a word of farewell was spoken, not a good wish followed him out into the world whither he went to meet with such spirit as he might whatever fate awaited him.

Making his way to Nashville, already occupied by the Army of General Buell, he enlisted in the first organization that he found, a Kentucky regiment of cavalry, and in due time passed through all the stages of military evolution from raw recruit to experienced trooper.  A right good trooper he was, too, although in his oral narrative from which this tale is made there was no mention of that; the fact was learned from his surviving comrades.  For Barr Lassiter has answered “Here” to the sergeant whose name is Death.