redicting that we should find the
required cobbler. Of course we found him in a country where every family
makes its own shoes as much as its own bread, and he was ready to serve
the traveler without pay. Notwithstanding our night's work, we tarried
only for the necessary repairs, and just before sunset we looked down
upon the scattering settlement of Shooting Creek. Standing on the bleak
brow of "Chunky Gall" Mountain, my guide recognized the first familiar
object on the trip, which was the roof of his uncle's house. At Shooting
Creek I was the guest of the Widow Kitchen, whose house was the chief
one in the settlement, and whose estate boasted two slaves. The husband
had fallen by an anonymous bullet while salting his cattle on the
mountain in an early year of the war.

On the day following my arrival I was conducted over a ridge to another
creek, where I met two professional guides, Quince Edmonston and Mack
Hooper. As I came upon the pair parting a thicket of laurel, with their
long rifles at a shoulder, I instantly recognized the coat of the latter
as the snuff-colored sack in which I had last seen Lieutenant Lamson. It
had been given to the man at Chattanooga, where these same guides had
conducted my former companions in safety a month before. Quince
Edmonston, the elder, had led numerous parties of Yankee officers over
the Wacheesa trail for a consideration of a hundred dollars, pledged to
be paid by each officer at Chattanooga or Nashville.

[Illustration: SURPRISED AT MRS. KITCHEN'S.]

Two other officers were concealed near by, and a number of refugees,
awaiting a convoy, and an arrangement was rapidly made with the guides.
The swollen condition of the Valley River made it necessary to remain
for several days at Shooting Creek before setting out. Mack and I were
staying at the house of Mrs. Kitchen. It was on the afternoon of a
memorable Friday, the rain still falling in torrents without, that I
sat before the fire poring over a small Sunday-school book,--the only
printed book in the house, if not in the settlement. Mack Hooper was
sitting by the door. Attracted by a rustling sound in his direction, I
looked up just in time to see his heels disappearing under the nearest
bed. Leaping to my feet with an instinctive impulse to do likewise, I
was confronted in the doorway by a stalwart Confederate officer fully
uniformed and armed. Behind him was his quartermaster-sergeant. This was
a government party collecting