it. His history is
stereotyped in that region. Born among the hills, where the crops are
stones, and sheep's noses are sharpened before they can nibble the thin
grass between them, his life had been one of the hardest toil and
privation. He knew nothing but what Nature, the Bible, the "Course of
Time," and two or three of Shakspeare's plays had taught him; but
somehow in the mountain air he had grown to be a man,--a man as
civilized nations account manhood.

"Why did you come into the war?" at last asked the Colonel.

"To do my sheer fur the kentry, Gin'ral," answered the man. "And I
didn't druv no barg'in wi' th' Lord. I guv Him my life squar' out; and
ef He's a mind ter tuck it on this tramp, why, it's a His'n; I've
nothin' ter say agin it."

"You mean that you've come into the war not expecting to get out of it?"

"That's so, Gin'ral."

"Will you die rather than let the dispatch be taken?"

"I wull."

The Colonel recalled what had passed in his own mind when poring over
his mother's Bible that night at his home in Ohio; and it decided him.
"Very well," he said; "I will trust you."

The dispatch was written on tissue paper, rolled into the form of a
bullet, coated with warm lead, and put into the hand of the Kentuckian.
He was given a carbine, a brace of revolvers, and the fleetest horse in
his regiment, and, when the moon was down, started on his perilous
journey. He was to ride at night, and hide in the woods or in the houses
of loyal men in the day-time.

It was pitch-dark when he set out; but he knew every inch of the way,
having travelled it often, driving mules to market. He had gone twenty
miles by early dawn, and the house of a friend was only a few miles
beyond him. The man himself was away; but his wife was at home, and she
would harbor him till nightfall. He pushed on, and tethered his horse in
the timber; but it was broad day when he rapped at the door, and was
admitted. The good woman gave him breakfast, and showed him to the
guest-chamber, where, lying down in his boots, he was soon in a deep
slumber.

The house was a log cabin in the midst of a few acres of
deadening,--ground from which trees have been cleared by girdling. Dense
woods were all about it; but the nearest forest was a quarter of a mile
distant, and should the scout be tracked, it would be hard to get away
over this open space, unless he had warning of the approach of his
pursuers. The woman thought of this, and sent up the roa