urder, which he described graphically and
evidently truthfully.

I reached Cincinnati, and as soon as possible hurried on board the
steamboat. We went along to Charleston, and it will hardly be believed
that I very nearly missed the whole object of my journey by falling
asleep. We had but one more very short distance to go, when, overcome by
fatigue, I dropped into a nap. Fortunately I was awakened by the last
ringing of the bell, and, seizing my carpet-bag, ran ashore just as the
plank was to be withdrawn.

I went directly to Goshorn's hotel. He was a stout, burly man, shrewd in
his way, good-natured, but not without temper and impulses. He looked
keenly after business, played the fiddle, and performed a few tricks of
legerdemain. He had a ladylike wife, and both were very kind to me,
especially after they came to know me pretty well. The lady had a nice,
easy horse, which ere long was lent me freely whenever I wanted to ride.
One day it was missing. The master grieved. They had named it after me
in compliment. "Goshorn," I said, "in future I shall call _you Horse-
gone_." But he was not pleased with the name. However, it was recovered
by a miracle, for the amount of horse-stealing which went on about us
then was fabulous.

After a few days Goshorn and I prepared to go up Elk River, to renew the
leases of oil and coal lands. Now I must premise that at all times the
man who was engaged in "ile" bore a charmed life, and was venerated by
both Union men and rebels. _He_ could pass the lines and go anywhere. At
one time, when not a spy could be got into or out of Richmond to serve
us, Goshorn seriously proposed to me to go with him into the city! I had
a neighbour named Fassit, an uncle of Theodore. He had oil-wells in
Virginia, and when the war begun work on them was stopped. This dismayed
the natives. One morning there came to Mr. Fassit a letter imploring him
to return: "Come back, o come agin and bore us some more wels. We wil
protec you like a son. We dont make war on _Ile_." And I, being thus
respected, went and came from the Foeman's Land, and joined in the
dreadful rebel-ry and returned unharmed, leading a charmed if _not_
particularly charming life all winter and the spring, to the great
amazement and bewilderment of many, as will appear in the sequence.

The upper part of Elk River was in the debatable land, or rather still in
Slave-ownia or rebeldom, where a Union man's life was worth abo