knew that if the masses discovered it before they had them bound hand and foot by military despotism, the whole jig was up."

He paused, for just then the engine-whistle sounded shrilly through the trees, the train broke up, every man in the car sprang to his feet, and a dozen voices cried out:

"The guerillas are on us!"

"Are you armed, Sir?" said my new acquaintance to me, as coolly as if we were at his dinner-table.

Cocking the revolver, and giving one thought to those I had left at home, I seated myself, and breathlessly awaited the expected assault.

CHAPTER III.

GUERILLAS.

As the train came to a halt, the Doctor, who had been enjoying a quiet nap, opened his eyes, and asked:

"What's to pay?
y?"

"Reckon the Bushwhackers are on us!"

"That can't be, this side of Bowling Green—some one had better reconnoitre," and rising from his seat, he drew from his pocket a pistol about as large as a boy's pop-gun, and strode toward the doorway."

"For God's sake, Doctor, don't go there! Keep inside!" exclaimed half a dozen voices.

Not heeding the warnings, the medical gentleman stepped upon the platform, saying, "Where's the guard? Well, these fellows are never where they should be."

car.

The single soldier who had been stationed before the door, had suddenly disappeared. Naturally objecting to standing as a target for fifty rebel rifles, he had retreated into the forward The Doctor, then glancing cautiously around, and apparently seeing nothing to satisfy his curiosity, made a sudden spring for a huge tree which grew a short distance from the track. He alighted within a few feet of it, and by the movement secured two breastworks; the tree in his front and the car in his rear.

"He jumps like a wild cat," exclaimed the Colonel, “but look at our neighbors here! Ha! ha!"

Turning about, I beheld nearly all of the citizens crouched on the floor, beneath the windows, and not a few of the officers with arms (and legs) couchant.

"I say, Squire," said the Colonel, laughing, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth.' The devils would have been on us before now if they were coming."

"The wise man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself-the fool holdeth up his head and getteth hit," responded the Squire, with a ludicrous effort at merriment.

"That isn't in my version. But, Doctor, what's the detention?" to the latter, who that moment re-entered.

"Two or three rails displaced-that's all. Some scoundrel meant to throw us off the track."

I breathed more freely; for, if the truth must be told, my respiratory apparatus had not performed its usual functions during the preceding occurrences. My whole being had been absorbed in two senses-sight and hearing. With my eyes ranging intently around, and my ears strained to catch the lightest outside sound, I had made those organs do the work of at least five days in those five minutes. Even a brave manand bravery is not essential to one of my profession-is shaken when confronting an unseen danger; and how the Colonel and the Doctor maintained such perfect coolness I could not imagine. I said as much to them, when, at the end of a half-hour, we resumed our seats, and the train got again under way.

6:

Courage," replied the Colonel," like almost every thing else, is a thing of habit. A man who has for two years daily expected every bush would give him a bullet, gets indifferent to

danger; but, after all, I had rather have death come at me face to face, than spring on me suddenly from behind a rail fence.” "It is barbarous-this guerilla system," I remarked, again dovetailing my legs within the Doctor's.

"It's more than that-it's hellish," he replied; "Jeff. Davis should be hung for inaugurating it."

"If you imagine," said the Colonel, "all the thieves and cutthroats of New York let loose upon the city, with unlimited license to kill, burn, and destroy, you will have a faint idea of what it is. The lowest dregs of society, our gamblers, horsethieves, and criminals, make up these bands. Now and then a respectable man, too cowardly to go into the regular army, joins them; but he soon becomes as bad as the rest. They submit to no restraint, but range the country, plundering and murdering friend and foe. If a worthless fellow has a grudge against a neighbor, he joins them, denounces his enemy as a Union man, and stealing on him at night, either shoots him down before his wife and children, or burns his house over his head. They spare neither sex nor age. Lone women are outraged, old men are murdered by them. I paid them eleven thousand five hundred dollars for my own life only last fall. Wherever they go terror reigns; and more than one-half of this State and Tennessee is under their control. In fact, their raids extend even within the Union lines. Mounted on swift horses, they make a sudden dash on a picket-station, or a railway train, and are ten miles away before pursuit can be commenced."

"And the King Devil among them is a Yankee," said the Doctor, smiling.

"Is that true?"

"Yes-but don't be offended. I know you export your

meanest specimens ; and that our people have some traits worse than yours. The North loves gold-the South loves power; and the love of power is infinitely worse than the love of gold. One absorbs a man in self, but makes him orderly, quiet, and law-abiding; the other renders him restless, turbulent, and impatient of control-ready to overturn every thing, human and divine, that stands in the way of his personal ambition. It led Satan to rebel in Heaven, and it made our leaders rise against the best Government on earth; and, Sir, we cannot end this war until we serve them as the Lord served the devil-send them to h-1!"

This was said with a warmth that, in one of the Doctor's cool temperament, surprised me; but I merely remarked:

"You would go too far. Strip them of their negroes—their power is in them-and they will be harmless. Reduced to earning their bread by the sweat of their brows, they'll find no time to plot revolutions."

"You are mistaken. Our people are ignorant, and accustomed to being led by them. Seeing them impoverished, they'll pity them, and be just as much under their control as now. We must weed the whole race out of the South. I wouldn't hang them-they are too many for that; but I'd expatriate every one of them. Until that is done, there'll be no lasting peace."

"Well, it strikes me we'll have to catch the birds before we cage them."

"And going on as we are going now we'll never catch them," remarked the Colonel; "I sometimes think God has struck our rulers with judicial blindness to punish the nation for its sins. Why, Sir, I have half a dozen negro boys who could