CHAPTER XIV.

BIBLE'S SCOUTING ADVENTURES.

BIBLE'S intimate knowledge of the country, and acquaintance with the loyal men of the district, enabled him to perform more actual service to the Union cause than a regiment of men in the ranks. Hiding in the woods, or secreting himself in the houses of his friends by day, he would sally forth by night, and, penetrating far into the rebel lines, frequently gather information of great importance to our army. Often days without food, sleeping out in the cold and the rain, hunted down with. blood-hounds, betrayed by pretended friends, waylaid by whole regiments, the mark for a thousand rifles, and with the gallows ever before him, he went on in his perilous work with a singlehearted devotion to his country, and an earnest, child-like reliance on God, that would do honor to the best names in history.

His scouting adventures would fill a volume, and read more like a romance of the middle ages than a matter-of-fact history of the present time. On one occasion, when about five miles outside of our lines, he came, late at night, upon a party of rebel officers, making merry at the house of a wealthy seces-` sionist. Riding coolly up to the mounted orderly on guard before the door-way, he pinioned his arms, thrust a handkerchief into his mouth, and led him quietly out of hearing. Then bidding him dismount, and tying him to a tree, he re

moved the impromptu gag, and leveling a revolver at his head, said to him:

"Now, tell me, ye rebel villun, whot whiskey-kags wus ye a watchin' thar? Speak truth, or I'll guv ye free passage ter a hot kentry."

"Nine ossifers," said the trembling rebel; "a cunnel, two majors, a sargeon, two cap'ns, an' the rest leftenants."

"Whar's thar weapons ?"

"Thar swords is in the hall-way.

None on 'em hain't pistols

'cept the sargeon-he mought hev a 'volver."

"Whot nigs is they round?"

"Nary one, I reckon, more'n a old man thar (pointing to the kitchen-building) an' the gals in the house."

"Wall, I'll let ye go fur this, ef ye's telled the truth. Ef ye hain't, ye'd better be a sayin' yer prayers ter onst, fur the Lord won't yere ye on the t'other side uv Jurdan."

Fastening his horse in "the timber," and creeping up to the house, he then reconnoitered the kitchen premises. The old man—a stout, stalwart negro of about fifty—sat dozing in the corner, and his wife, a young mulatto woman, was cooking wild fowl over the fire. Opening the door, and placing his finger on his lips to enjoin silence, Bible beckoned to the woman. She came to him, and, looking her full in the eye for a moment, he said to her: "I kin trust ye. Wud ye an' yer old 'un loike ter git out o' the claws uv these durned secesh ?" "Yas, yas, Massa," she replied, "we wud. We's Union! We'd loike ter git 'way, Massa!"

Then awakening her husband, Bible said to him: Uncle, wud ye risk yer life fur yer freedom?"

"Ef dar's a chance, Massa, a right smart chance.

Dis

dark'y tinks a heap ob his life, he does, Massa. It 'm 'bout

all hem got."

ye

"Yas, yas, I know; but shill hev freedom. I'll see ye ter the Free States, ef ye'll holp tuck them secesh ossifers." "Holp tuck dem, Massa! Why, dar's a dozen on 'em; dey'd chaw ye up in no time," exclaimed the astonished African. "No, thar hain't a dozen on 'em ; thar's only nine; but―ye's a coward," replied the scout.

"No, I hain't no coward, Massa; but I loikes a chance, Massa, a right smart chance."

Bible soon convinced the negro that he would have a "right smart chance," and he consented to make the hazardous strike for his freedom. Entering the house, he returned in a few moments to the scout, confirming the sentinel's report: the weapons were reposing quietly in the hall, near the doorway, and the officers, very much the worse for liquor, were carousing with his master in the dining-room.

Selecting three of the best horses from the stables, Bible directed the yellow woman to lead them into the road, and to bring his own from where it was fastened in the woods. Then, with his sooty ally, the scout entered the mansion. Removing the arms from the hall, he walked boldly into the dining-room. "Gentlemen," he said, pointing his pistols-one in each handat the rebel officers, "ye is my pris'ners. Surrender yer shootin' irons, or ye's dade men."

"Who are you?" exclaimed one of them, as they all sprang

to their feet.

"Cunnel Smith, uv the Fust Tennessee Nigger Regiment— one old black man an' a yaller 'ooman," coolly replied the

scout.

"Go to

,"shouted the surgeon, quickly drawing his revolver, and discharging it directly at Bible's face. The ball grazed his head, cut off a lock of hair just above his ear, and lodged in the wall at his back. The report was still sounding through the apartment, when the surgeon uttered a wild cry, sprang a few feet into the air, and fell lifeless to the floor! The negro had shot him.

"Come, gentlemen, none o' thet," said Bible, as coolly as if nothing had happened, "guv me the shootin' iron, an' surrender, or we'll sot the rest on ye ter his wuck-rakin' coals fur the devil's funnace,-in less nur a minnit."

Without more hesitation the rebel colonel handed the scout the fallen man's pistol, and then all, followed by the scout and the negro, marched quietly out of the front door. The mulatto woman, holding the horses, was standing in the high

way.

"Hitch the nags, my purty gal," said the scout, “an' git a coil. An' ye, gentlemen, sot down, an' say nothin'-'cept it mought be yer prayers; but them, I reckon, ye hain't larned yit."

The negress soon returned with the rope, and while Bible and her husband covered them with their revolvers, she tied the arms of the prostrate chivalry. When this was done, the scout affixed a long rope to the waist of the officer on either flank of the column, and, taking one in his own hand, and giving the other to the negro, cried out:

"Sogers uv the Fust Tennessee! Mount!"

The regiment bounded into the saddle, and in that plightthe planter and the eight captive officers marching on before, the self-appointed "cunnel" and his chief officer bringing up the

rear, and the rest of his command-the yellow woman-a-straddle of a horse between them, they entered the Union lines.

On another occasion, hunted down by several companies of rebel cavalry, Bible took refuge in a grove of laurel bushes. Among the bushes was a hollow tree in which he had once or twice slept on previous expeditions. It had been overthrown. by a tornado, and the soil still clung, in huge bowlders, to its upturned roots. Creeping into this tree, he closed the small opening with earth, and, boring a hole through the trunk with his bowie-knife to admit air, and give him a look-out on his pursuers, he lay there without food for three days and nights. The rebels saw him enter the grove, and at once surrounded it, so that escape was impossible. A party then beat the bushes, and after examining every square yard of the ground, came and sat upon the hollow tree. Listening, he heard them recount some of his exploits, and assert very positively, that he had sold himself to that notorious dealer in human chattels-the devilwho, they thought, had given him power to make himself invisible at will. "An' bein' thet's so, cumrades," very logically remarked one of the number, "doan't it nat'rally foller thet the devil ar' on the Union side, an' moughtent we 'bout so wall guv up fur a dade beat 'ter onst!"

it

When the rebel army retreated from Murfreesboro, its advance column came suddenly upon the scout as he was eating his breakfast in an "oak opening" near the highway. There was no chance of escape or concealment, for the "opening" was covered with immense trees standing fifteen and twenty feet apart, with only a short grass growing between them. Bible was disguised in an immense mass of red hair and beard, and wore a tattered suit of the coarse homespun of the