enemy’s mind, and so were hopeful.  In the evening we were marched to the outskirts of Gettysburg and kept there till the afternoon of the 4th, when we started towards Virginia.  I hung back and dragged myself along, and so was fortunately placed near the rear of the column, and we plodded away.  I thanked Heaven that the night promised to be dark and stormy, and was as vigilant as an Indian, looking for my chance.  It seemed long in coming, for at first the guards were very watchful.  At one point I purposely stumbled and fell, hoping to crawl into the bushes, but a rebel was right on me and helped me up with his bayonet.”

“O Arthur!”

“Yes, the risks were great, for we had been told that the first man who attempted to leave the line would be shot.  I lagged behind as if I could not keep up, and so my vigilant guard got ahead of me, and I proposed to try it on with the next fellow.  I did not dare look around, for my only chance was to give the impression that I fell from utter exhaustion.  We were winding around a mountain-side and I saw some dark bushes just beyond me.  I staggered towards them and fell just beside them, and lay as if I were dead.

“A minute passed, then another, and then there was no other sound than the tramp and splash in the muddy road.  I edged still farther and farther from this, my head down the steep bank, and soon found myself completely hidden.  The comrade next to me either would not tell if he understood my ruse, or else was so weary that he had not noticed me.  If the guard saw me, he concluded that I was done for and not worth further bother.

“After the column had passed, I listened to hear if others were coming, then stumbled down the mountain, knowing that my best chance was to strike some stream and follow the current.  It would take me into a valley where I would be apt to find houses.  At last I became so weary that I lay down in a dense thicket and slept till morning.  I awoke as hungry as a famished wolf, and saw nothing but a dense forest on every side.  But the brook murmured that it would guide me, and I now made much better progress in the daylight.  At last I reached a little clearing and a wood-chopper’s cottage.  The man was away, but his wife received me kindly and said I was welcome to such poor fare and shelter as they had.  She gave me a glass of milk and some fried bacon and corn-bread, and I then learned all about the nectar and ambrosia of the gods.  In the evening her husband came home and said that Lee had been whipped by the Yanks, and that he was retreating rapidly, whereon I drank to the health of my host nearly all the milk given that night by his lean little cow.  He was a good-natured, loutish sort of fellow, and promised to guide me in a day or two to the west of the line of retreat.  He seemed very tearful of falling in with the rebels, and I certainly had seen all I wished of them for the present, so I was as patient as he desired.  At last he kept his