carried away with him
my best wishes and my revolver; I hope both have profited him. Where
caution or diplomacy are not required, his sterling honesty and dogged
courage will always stand him and others in good stead; if his superiors
can only tie up his tongue, I believe they will "make a man of him yet."

As to Shipley, I found that it was not considered prudent for him to
await my arrival there, as a search might be made over the Irishman's
premises at any moment. He had been sent back on the previous afternoon
to a house near Newmarket, a village some thirty miles east of
Boonesborough, so that we must almost have crossed on the high road
leading to Frederick city; there I was certain to find both him and
Falcon.

The Irishman was decidedly of opinion that to persevere in our
enterprise at the Shepherdstown ferry or anywhere in the immediate
neighborhood, would be not only the height of rashness, but absolute
waste of time. He advised our striking northward at once, by the
Cumberland route, which then appeared to be the only one offering
possible chances of success. Even on the Lower Potomac, the _cordon_ of
pickets and guard-boats had been so strengthened of late as to become
well nigh impervious, and captures were of hourly occurrence.

Slowly--and I fear rather sullenly--I admitted the justice of my
friend's counsel, as I walked down to his stable, where the roan had
been standing since Alick's departure. Perhaps even while I write, the
war-tide is surging backwards and forwards once again past the doors of
that cozy homestead; but I trust its roof-tree is still inviolate by
fire or sword, and that no rude hand has scorched or torn the "new
parlor-curtains," in which my trim little hostess took an innocent
pride. It was past noon when I bade farewell to my friends, and mounted
the roan, to strike Shipley's back trail. There was a light blue sky
overhead, though the wind blew intensely cold, and hoofs on the hard
frozen ground rang as on pavement. For the first eighteen miles or so,
which brought us to Frederick, my horse stepped out cheerily enough,
though he carried far more weight than he had yet been burdened with, in
the shape of myself and full saddle-bags. Here we baited, an obscure inn
which had been recommended to me as "safe;" and late in the afternoon
held on for Newmarket. I found the farm-house I sought without any
difficulty, but the owner was down in the village, a mile or so off.
Without dismoun