bridge. He went straight up to St. Charles, rode up to the same house where he lost his horse. The same young lady was sitting where he last saw her, and he walked up to her, made a very polite bow and said, "How do you do, sis?" And she replied, "I thought I told you never to come here again." Jim looked at her and said: "Now look here; listen to me for one moment. In the first place I love you, and want you to be my wife. I have thought of you, and dreamed of you, and the fact is you are here between two contending armies; you are liable to be burned out, then you would have no place to go to. Now, way up north in Illinois I have a nice little home, and one of the best mothers living there all alone, out of hearing of the war; all is peace there, and I want to send you to my mother to be a daughter to her; I know she will love you for her son's sake, if nothing else." What girl could resist such pleading from such a handsome young fellow as our Jim? She looked up at him and seeing he was in dead earnest said: "When would you want me to go?" "Right away; there is a lady from our town who is going back to-morrow, and you can go right home with her." "I will go in and see what mother says." She slipped in the house, while Jim stood twisting his hat in his hands as if he was going to make a rope of it. Presently the girl came to the door and told him to come in, which he did, and found the old lady sitting in a rocking chair. As Jim went in the old lady looked up and told him to be seated. She asked him a great many questions about his home and mother, to which Jim answered satisfactorily. The old lady stepped out so Jim and the girl could talk over their affairs alone. Said she: "Young man, you are a stranger to me and an enemy to our cause; I do not even know your name, but I will marry you on two conditions—one is that you will let my mother go with me, and the other is that I am not to be your wife in the true sense of the word till this war is over, and then I want it understood that if I see anything in your character that is obnoxious to me, you are to bring me home here, and forever leave me alone," to which our Jim gave cheerful consent. They were married by a minister who lived close by, and Jim sent his wife and mother-in-law up to Illinois, and just let me whisper in your ear, dear reader, they are there yet, and you may depend there is not a nicer family for miles around.

CHAPTER IV.

One fine morning my Captain told me to report to Col. Brackett. I walked up to regimental headquarters. The Colonel was writing when I stepped into the tent; he looked up and said, "Be seated for a moment." He soon got through with his writing, folded it up, put it in a large envelope and handed it to me, saying, "Sergeant, have you a good horse?" Now, my reader, excuse me if I was proud of my horse for there was not one in the regiment that could outrun or outjump mine. "Well," said the Colonel, "you may need just such a horse before you get back to camp. I want you to take this dispatch to Gen. Curtis, some thirty miles from here, and wait his orders." Anything of this kind just suited me, for I was fond of adventure. I went to headquarters and handed my dispatch to Gen. Curtis; as he tore open the envelope he told me to stop a moment to see what it said. After he had read the contents, he looked me over from head to foot and finally asked, "What regiment do you belong to?" "I belong to the Ninth Ill. Cavalry, Co. I." "What is your name?" "William N. Tyler." "Well, I think you are the very man I want. I have a dispatch to send to Colonel Wyman, who is acting brigadier-general at Little Rock, Ark., one hundred and fifty miles south. Now the road is infested with rebels; are you willing to undertake it?" "Yes, sir," said I. "Well," said the Colonel, "report to me in the morning and I will give you instructions and dispatches." Gen. Curtis was a fatherly old man, but very strict. He was all of six feet high, gray eyes and hair. He was good to his men and did all he could to keep them in good health and well clothed, but would punish severely if any were caught foraging on their own hook. He gave me orders to report to a cavalry regiment and they would find me quarters for the night. Early the next morning I was on hand but had to wait until almost noon before the General was ready for me. He handed me three large envelopes and said, "Now, Sergeant, I want you to take these dispatches to Col. Wyman at Little Rock, and wait his orders. If you get in close quarters with the rebels and are in danger of being captured, be sure to destroy the dispatches. Whatever you do, don't let the rebs get them. My orderly will go across the river with you, and the Captain out on picket post will instruct you when to start and what road to take." While the General was giving me my orders all the officers had their eyes bent on me, so you may be sure I was glad when the General gave the final order.

The orderly and myself mounted our horses and rode down to the river. There was a pontoon bridge out for about two hundred yards, and the balance of the river was crossed by a ferry boat—what they called a rope ferry. It was run by means of a rope fastened from one shore to the other. The men on the boat would draw it by the rope from one side to the other. Just two days before I got there they were crossing with some artillery and horses, and as they were in the center of the river the horses got frightened and became uncontrollable, capsizing the boat and drowning nine men and a number of horses. We got safely across and commenced to climb the mountain on the other side. Finally we reached the top and oh! what a sight met our eyes; we could see for miles around to the north, but to the south it was all hills and mountains. My road lay directly south, so it proved a pretty rough one. When we got to the top of the mountain and looked down on White river, I could not see how it was possible for our horses to haul the artillery up the mountain. It looked to me that a horse had all he could do to climb it without pulling anything. The picket post was on the summit of the mountain. The orderly that came with me took the Captain to one side and had quite a long talk in an undertone and finally came back to me, reached out his hand and bade me good-bye and told me not to let the rebs get me. Then he went back again. The Captain of the guard came up and told me to dismount. After giving my horse to a man, I went to where the guards were sitting around the fire. Some were cooking and some were telling stories. One tall fellow was telling about being kept in irons for four days. He looked up and saw me standing back a little and told me to come to the fire. "Stranger, the wind blows mighty cold up here on the mountain." I walked up and sat down, drank some coffee and ate hard tack and bacon, so had as good a dinner as if I had been in my own camp.

"So they have had you in irons four days?" "Yes, you see the old General is mighty strict about our foraging, but the other day we got out of corn and it is very scarce around here, so we got orders for a few to go out at a time and scour the country for corn.

"Our sergeant took ten of us and we started out; rode two days and was just on the point of coming in with our corn when we met an old darkey who told us to follow an old blind road and we would find a farm house down there where there was plenty of corn. We went and found it just as he said, but only having one wagon it did not take long for us to fill it; then we looked around for something good to eat. I got one ham and a pig, which I put in a gunny sack and threw across my horse and started for camp. Well, my pig kept kicking