Troops had arrived in the neighborhood the day after the raid on Ion; so to Boyd’s other causes of distress was added the constant fear of detection and apprehension.  This was one reason why the visits of his confreres were few and short.

The Klan was said to have disbanded and outrages had ceased, but an investigation was going on and search being made for the guilty parties; also United States revenue officers were known to be in quest of illicit distilleries; to which class this one of Rood’s belonged.

“What’s the news?” asked Boyd one morning while Savage was engaged in dressing his hurts.

“Very bad; you’ll have to get out of this at once if you don’t want to be nabbed.  A jail might be more comfortable in some respects, eh, old boy? but I s’pose you prefer liberty.

“’Better to sit in Freedom’s hall,
With a cold damp floor, and a mouldering wall,
Than to bend the neck or to bow the knee
In the proudest palace of Slavery.’

“Fine sentiment, eh, Boyd?”

The doctor was just drunk enough to spout poetry without knowing or caring whether it was exactly apropos or not.

“Very fine, though not quite to the point, it strikes me,” answered Boyd, wincing under the not too gentle touch of the inebriate’s shaking hand.  “But how am I to get out of this? blind and nearly helpless as I am?”

“Well, sir, we’ve planned it all out for you—­never forsake a brother in distress, you know.  There’s a warrant out for Bill Dobbs and he has to skedaddle too.  He starts for Texas to-night, and will take charge of you.”

Savage went on to give the details of the plan, then left with a promise to return at night-fall.  He did so, bringing Dobbs and Smith with him.  Boyd’s wounds were attended to again, Dobbs looking on to learn the modus operandi; then the invalid, aided by Smith on one side and Dobbs on the other, was conducted to an opening in the woods where a horse and wagon stood in readiness, placed in it, Dobbs taking a seat by his side and supporting him with his arm, and driven a few miles along an unfrequented road to a little country station, where they took the night train going south.

The conductor asked no questions; merely exchanged glances with Dobbs, and seeing him apparently in search of a pin in the inside of his coat, opened his own and handed him one, then passed on through the car.

Boyd was missed from the breakfast table at Ashlands on the morning after the raid upon Ion.  His aunt sent a servant to his room to see if he had overslept himself.

The man returned with the report that “Marse George” was not there and that his bed had certainly not been occupied during the night.

Still as his movements were at all times rather uncertain, and the ladies, having had no communication with the Oaks or Ion on the previous day, were in ignorance of all that had transpired there, his absence occasioned them no particular anxiety or alarm.  The meal went on, enlivened by cheerful chat.