floated so close to one of your boats, that through the port-hole he saw some of the crew playing cards, and heard them talking. The Yankees almost caught him on this trip; for, after quitting the river, and travelling a ways on a half-broke colt given him by one of our people, he comes of a sudden upon a fine horse tied to a tree, which he cxchanged for the colt, and galloped onward. 'They're hunting for my track,' says Lamer to himself; 'much good may it do them.' Five minutes afterward he met a Fed.-most likely the owner of the horse-carrying chickens and a bucket of wild honey, but he didn't go far, for our scout sent a bullet through his head that killed him. The next man on the path called himself a guide, who agreed to pilot Fontain to the Big Black for fifty dollars. 'All right, go ahead,' said our man, but he kept a sharp lookout all the way, and somehow mistrusted that the man wasn't right; however, he was paid when they came in sight of the ferry, and then the scout, instead of going straight on, took a roundabout course, and found that by doing so, he'd flanked a troop of Feds. posted to catch him at the brink. One of 'em sprang up within six feet of him and cried, 'Halt!' but a bullet brought him down-our scout always fires to kill-while Lam. dashed up the river bottom, the balls hissing all round him, making holes in his clothes, cutting his scabbard, grazing his leg, and knocking away some of his fingers. The horse went a mile after he'd been hit by seven bullets, then he gave out suddenly, and dropped dead. Well, Fontain found a safe place, for he knows every nook on the river, and tied his traps up in two bundles which he took over on his back; and next day, with the help of friends and horses, he delivered the return dispatches in Jackson. That's the story as he told it to me, and my way of thinking is, that you'll have to wait till he and a good many of his like walk to your ProvostMarshal's and give themselves up, before you can upset the Confeder'cy. As to capturing them, it can't be done.'” "He's a tough one," exclaimed Roger. "But I don't admire that mode of travelling; it puts me in mind of the giant in Maedy's story-book, who, if a house or church stood in his path, had only to blow, pfiff! when the road was cleared for a league. But in Rebeldom they must shoot the way clear-that's still less agreeable for the inhabitants." Mrs. Warren continued: "It was now the Lieutenant's turn to tell his little story. He began by asking if our rebel friend had ever heard of Colonel Grierson's troop? No, he never had; he hadn't been in the habit of reading the papers, hadn't probably seen a dozen since Sumter was bombarded, how then should he know any other events than those he'd 'hearn tell of in camp!' 'You've heard of your Morgan, Forrest, Van Dorn?' 'Yes,' he reckoned, with a nod of assurance. 'Well, so has General Grant,' responded the Lieutenant, and while your grey backs were swarming in and near Vicksburg, he sent out Colonel Grierson to try his luck raiding, with considerably less than a thousand men formed into a cavalry brigade. They started on the seventeenth of April, from Lagrange, Tenn., made a clean sweep through the State of Mississippi-I could show you their track, six hundred miles long, on a map, as plain as a broom's mark on a dusty floor-and brought up at Baton Rouge, La., at the end of a fortnight, that is, on the second of May. They made from twenty to sixty miles a day; they forded rivers, and such swamps as are to be seen nowhere but in this outlandish region-one of them was eight miles wideand drowned, I don't remember how many horses; they burned bridges, railroad property, depots of supplies, destroyed three thousand stand of arms, took over five hundred prisoners, killed a hundred greybacks in skirmishes, and lost but twenty-seven of their number in performing these exploits!' "Oh,' said Johnny, with an indifferent yawn, 'that's a Yankee story; you can't make me believe |