a pocket of George's overcoat. He had
supped regally at the Hares on bacon and bones, and he felt warm and at
peace with the world.

Before the party had more than emerged from the garden (a task by no means
easy in itself, on account of the darkness), something whistled by them,
to the accompaniment of a sharp report. Looking behind them they saw the
meagre form of Hare standing in the kitchen doorway. He held a rifle in
his right hand. The kitchen fire made him plainly visible.

"Pretty good aim, old boy," shouted Macgreggor, "considering you could
hardly see us. But I can see you plainly enough."

As he spoke he drew his revolver. Hare was already putting the rifle to
his shoulder, preparing for another shot. He had hardly had a chance to
adjust the gun, however, before he dropped it with a cry of pain and ran
into the house. A bullet had come whizzing from Macgreggor, and struck the
farmer in his right arm.

"Just a little souvenir to remember me by," laughed the lucky marksman.

"Hurry up!" cried Watson. "To-morrow night we must be in Marietta. We are
still many miles away, and in a hostile, unknown country."

So the three pushed on into the gloom. The prospect of meeting James
Andrews at the appointed place was not reassuring. Their only hope was to
keep on along the bank of the Tennessee River until they reached
Chattanooga. From there they could take a train for Marietta.

"Shall we make it?" thought George. Waggie gave a muffled bark which
seemed to say: "Courage!"

CHAPTER III

MINGLING WITH THE ENEMY

It was weary work, this tramping along the Tennessee shore, through mud,
or fields of stubble, over rocks, or amid dripping trees; but the three
kept on towards Chattanooga for a couple of hours, until all the good
effects of their warming at Farmer Hare's were quite vanished. Watson,
having showed by his mother-wit and presence of mind that he was a man to
be relied upon, had now resumed his privilege of growling, and gave vent
to many angry words at the roughness and unutterable dreariness of the
way.

"Why was America ever discovered by that inquisitive, prying old
Christopher Columbus?" he grunted, after he had tripped over the stump of
a cottonwood-tree, and fallen flat with his face in the slime. "If he had
never discovered America there would never have been any United States;
had there never been any United States there would never have been any war
between North and South; had ther