tacles,
and when he had completely outwitted the grayback who had labored so
diligently to save him from his impending fate, he was at the zenith of
prosperity. He had vanquished the last impediment, and the lines of the
Union army--the haven of peace to him--were only a short distance from the
scene of his victory.

Prosperity makes men arrogant and reckless, and I am sorry to say that it
had the same effect upon Tom Somers. If he had been content modestly to
enjoy the victory he had achieved, it would have been wiser and safer for
him; but when Fortune was kind to him, he mocked her, and she turned
against him.

When he had passed out of the reach of the rebel soldier, whose musket had
been rendered useless for the time being, Tom believed that he was safe,
and that he had fairly escaped from the last peril that menaced him on the
voyage. But he was mistaken; for as the current swept the bateau around
the bend of the river, he discovered, to his astonishment and chagrin, the
two secesh soldiers, who had left the picket post some time before,
standing at convenient distances from each other and from the shore, in
the water, ready to rescue him from the fate before him. The place they
had chosen was evidently a ford of the river, where they intended to check
the boat in its mad career down the stream. They were painfully persistent
in their kind intentions to save him from the horrible Yankees, and Tom
wished they had been less humane and less enthusiastic in his cause.

As soon as Tom perceived this trap, he regretted his imprudence in
betraying himself to the soldier from whom he had just escaped. His sorrow
was not diminished, when, a few minutes later, he heard the shouts of the
third soldier, who, by hard running across the fields, had reached the
ford before him.

"Shoot him! Shoot him! He's a Yankee!" bellowed the grayback on the shore.

Tom was appalled at these words, and wondered how the soldier could have
found out that he was a Yankee; but when he recalled the fact that he had
entertained him with Yankee Doodle at their last meeting, the mystery
became less formidable.

"Shoot him! He's a Yankee!" shouted Secesh on the bank of the stream.

"We've left our guns on shore," replied Secesh in the water.

"I'm very much obliged to you for that," said Tom to himself, as he
grasped his paddle, and set the boat over towards the right bank of the
river.

No doubt the rebels in the water, when they saw with