CHAPTER XIX.

GARFIELD AS A COLLEGE PRESIDENT.


When James Garfield presented himself at Hiram, an awkward, overgrown
boy of nineteen, in his rustic garb, and humbly asked for the position
of janitor and bell-ringer, suppose the trustees had been told, "In
seven years your institute will have developed into a college, and that
boy will be the president," we can imagine their amazement.

Yet it had all come true. Nowhere, perhaps, but in America could such a
thing have happened, and even here it seldom happens that such an upward
stride is made in so short a time.

After all, however, the important question to consider is, "What sort of
a college president did this humble canal-boy, who counted it promotion
when he was elected a janitor and bell-ringer, become?"

For information upon this point, we go to one of his pupils, Rev. I.L.
Darsie, of Danbury, Conn., who writes as follows:

"I attended the Western Reserve Institute when Garfield was principal,
and I recall vividly his method of teaching. He took very kindly to me,
and assisted me in various ways, because I was poor, and was janitor of
the buildings, and swept them out in the morning and built the fires, as
he had done only six years before, when he was a pupil in the same
college. He was full of animal spirits, and used to run out on the green
every day and play cricket with his scholars. He was a tall, strong man,
but dreadfully awkward. Every now and then he would get a hit, and he
muffed his ball and lost his hat as a regular thing.[A] He was
left-handed, too, and that made him seem all the clumsier. But he was
most powerful and very quick, and it was easy for us to understand how
it was that he had acquired the reputation of whipping all the other
mule-drivers on the canal, and of making himself the hero of that
thoroughfare, when he followed its tow-path, only ten years earlier.

[Footnote A: I have seen it somewhere stated that when a Congressman at
Washington he retained his interest in the game of base-ball, and always
was in attendance when it was possible, at a game between two
professional clubs.]

"No matter how old the pupils were, Garfield always called us by our
first names, and kept himself on the most intimate terms with all. He
played with us freely, and we treated him out of the class-room just
about as we did one another. Yet he was a most strict disciplinarian,
and enforced the rules like a martinet. He combined an affectionate and
confiding manner with respect for order in a most successful manner. If
he wanted to speak to a pupil, either for reproof or approbation, he
would generally manage to get one arm around him, and draw him close up
to him. He had a peculiar way of shaking hands, too, giving a twist to
your arm, and drawing you right up to him. This sympathetic manner has
helped him to advancement. When I was janitor, he used sometimes to stop
me, and ask my opinion about this and that, as if seriously advising
with me. I can see now that my opinion could not have been of any value,
and that he probably asked me partly to increase my self-respect and
partly to show that he felt an interest in me. I certainly was his
friend all the firmer for it.

"I remember once asking him what was the best way to pursue a certain
study.

"'Use several text-books,' he answered. 'Get the views of different
authors as you advance. In that way you can plow a deeper furrow. I
always study in that way.'

"He tried hard to teach us to observe carefully and accurately. He broke
out one day in the midst of a lesson with, 'Henry, how many posts are
there under the building down-stairs?' Henry expressed his opinion, and
the question went around the class, hardly any one getting it right.
Then it was, 'How many boot-scrapers are there at the door?' 'How many
windows in the building?' 'How many trees in the field?' He was the
keenest observer I ever saw. I think he noticed and numbered every
button on our coats. A friend of mine was walking with him through
Cleveland one day, when Garfield stopped and darted down a cellar-way,
asking his companion to follow, and briefly pausing to explain himself.
The sign, 'Saws and Files,' was over the door, and in the depths was
heard a regular clicking sound. 'I think this fellow is cutting files,'
said he, 'and I have never seen a file cut.

"Down they went, and, sure enough, there was a man recutting an old
file; and they stayed ten minutes, and found out all about the process.
Garfield would never go by anything without understanding it.

"Mr. Garfield was very fond of lecturing in the school. He spoke two or
three times a week, on all manner of topics, generally scientific,
though sometimes literary or historical. He spoke with great freedom,
never writing out what he had to say, and I now think that his lectures
were a rapid compilation of his current reading, and that he threw it
into this form partly for the purpose of impressing it upon his own
mind.

"His facility of speech was learned when he was a pupil at Hiram. The
societies had a rule that every student should take his stand on the
platform and speak for five minutes on any topic suggested at the moment
by the audience. It was a very trying ordeal. Garfield broke down badly
the first two times he tried to speak, but persisted, and was at last,
when he went to Williams, one of the best of the five-minute speakers.
When he returned as principal, his readiness was striking and
remarkable."

Henry James says: "Garfield taught me more than any other man, living
or dead, and, proud as I am of his record as a soldier and a statesman,
I can hardly forgive him for abandoning the academy and the forum."

So President Hinsdale, one of Garfield's pupils, and his successor as
president, testifies: "My real acquaintance with Garfield did not begin
till the fall of 1856, when he returned from Williams College. He then
found me out, drew near to me, and entered into all my troubles and
difficulties pertaining to questions of the future. In a greater or less
degree this was true of his relations to his pupils generally. There are
hundreds of these men and women scattered over the world to-day, who can
not find language strong enough to express their feeling in
contemplating Garfield as their old instructor, adviser, and friend.

"Since 1856 my relations with him have been as close and confidential as
they could be with any man, and much closer and more confidential than
they have been with any other man. I do not say that it would be
possible for me to know anybody better than I know him, and I know that
he possesses all the great elements of character in an extraordinary
degree. His interest in humanity has always been as broad as humanity
itself, while his lively interest in young men and women, especially if
they were struggling in narrow circumstances to obtain an education, is
a characteristic known as widely over the world as the footsteps of
Hiram boys and girls have wandered.

"The help that he furnished hundreds in the way of suggestions,
teaching, encouragement, inspiration, and stimulus was most valuable.
His power over students was not so much that of a drill-master, or
disciplinarian, as that of one who was able to inspire and energize
young people by his own intellectual and moral force."

An illustration of the interest he felt in his pupils may be given.

A student came to the president's study at the close of a college term
to bid him good-bye. After the good-bye was said, he lingered, and
Garfield said: "I suppose you will be back again in the fall, Henry?"

"No," he stammered, "I am not coming back to Hiram any more. Father says
I have got education enough, and that he needs me to work on the farm;
that education doesn't help a farmer along any."

He was a bright boy--not a prodigy, by any means, but one of those
strong, awkward, large-headed fellows, such as James Garfield had
himself been.

"Is your father here?" asked the young president, affected by the boy's
evident sorrow.

"Yes, father is here, and is taking my things home for good."

"Well, don't feel badly. Please tell him Mr. Garfield would like to see
him at his study before he leaves the college."

"Yes, sir, I will."

In half an hour the father, a sturdy farmer, entered the study and
awkwardly sat down.

"So you have come to take Henry home, have you?" asked the president.

"Yes," answered the farmer.

"I sent for you because I wanted to have a little talk with you about
Henry's future. He is coming back again in the fall, I hope?"

"Wal, I think not. I don't reckon I can afford to send him any more.
He's got eddication enough for a farmer already, and I notice that when
they git too much, they sorter git lazy. Yer eddicated farmers are
humbugs. Henry's got so far 'long now that he'd rather have his head in
a book than be workin'. He don't take no interest in the stock, nor in
the farm improvements. Everybody else is dependent in this world on the
farmer, and I think that we've got too many eddicated fellows settin'
'round now for the farmers to support."

To this Garfield answered that he was sorry for the father's decision,
since his son, if permitted to come the next term, would be far enough
advanced to teach school, and so begin to help himself along. Teaching
would pay better than working on the farm in the winter.

"Do you really think Henry can teach next winter?" asked the father, to
whom the idea was a new one.

"I should think so, certainly," answered Garfield. "But if he can not do
so then, he can in a short time."

"Wal, I will think on it. He wants to come back bad enough, and I guess
I'll have to let him. I never thought of it that way afore."

The victory was won. Henry came back the next term, and after finishing
at Hiram, graduated at an Eastern college.




CHAPTER XX.

GARFIELD BECOMES A STATE SENATOR.


Probably Garfield considered now that he was settled in life. He had
married the woman of his choice, set up a pleasant home, and was fully
occupied with a class of duties that suited him. Living frugally, he was
able to lay by a portion of his salary annually, and saw the way open,
if life and health continued, to a moderate prosperity. He seemed to be
a born teacher, and his life seemed likely to be passed in that pleasant
and tranquil office.

Many years before, while still unmarried, his mother had been a teacher,
and one of her experiences when so occupied was so remarkable that I can
not forbear quoting it:

"About the year 1820 she and her sister were left alone in the world,
without provision, so far as the inheritance or possession of property
was concerned. Preferring to live among relatives, one went to reside
with an uncle in Northern Ohio, and the other, Eliza, afterward Mrs.
Garfield, came to another uncle, the father of Samuel Arnold, who then
lived on a farm near Norwich, Muskingum County, Ohio. There Eliza Ballou
made her home, cheerfully helping at the house or in the field, as was
then sometimes the custom in a pioneer country. Having something more
than what at that day was an ordinary education, Eliza procured about
twenty pupils, and taught a summer school.

"The school-house was one of the most primitive kind, and stood in the
edge of dense and heavily-timbered woods. One day there came up a
fearful storm of wind and rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning.
The woods were badly wrecked, but the wind left the old log-house
uninjured. Not so the lightning. A bolt struck a tree that projected
closely over the roof, and then the roof itself. Some of the pupils were
greatly alarmed, and no doubt thought it the crack of doom, or the day
of judgment. The teacher, as calm and collected as possible, tried to
quiet her pupils and keep them in their places. A man who was one of the
pupils, in speaking of the occurrence, says that for a little while he
remembered nothing, and then he looked around, and saw, as he thought,
the teacher and pupils lying dead on the, floor. Presently the teacher
began to move a little. Then, one by one, the pupils got up, with a
single exception. Help, medical and otherwise, was obtained as soon as
possible for this one, but, though life was saved for a time, reason had
forever fled."

This was certainly a fearful experience for a young teacher.

It was while on a visit to her sister, already married, in Northern
Ohio, that Eliza made the acquaintance of Abram Garfield, the father of
the future President. In this neighborhood, while on a visit to his
relatives, at the age of seventeen, James obtained a school and taught
for a single term.

Having retraced our steps to record this early experience of James'
mother, we take the opportunity to mention an incident in the life of
her son, which was omitted in the proper place. The story was told by
Garfield himself during his last sickness to Mr. Crump, steward of the
White House.

"When I was a youngster," said the President, "and started for college
at Hiram, I had just fifteen dollars--a ten-dollar bill in an old,
black-leather pocketbook, which was in the breast pocket of my coat, and
the other five dollars was in my trowsers' pocket. I was walking along
the road, and, as the day was hot, I took off my coat and carried it on
my arm, taking good care to feel every moment or two of the pocketbook,
for the hard-earned fifteen dollars was to pay my entrance at the
college.

"After a while I got to thinking over what college life would be like,
and forgot all about the pocketbook for some time, and when I looked
again it was gone! I went back mournfully along the road, hunting on
both sides for the pocketbook. Presently I came to a house where a young
man was leaning over a gate, and he asked me when I came up what I was
hunting for. Upon my explaining my loss, and describing the pocketbook,
the young man handed it over. That young man," the President added,
turning to his devoted physician, "was Dr. Bliss. He saved me for
college."

"Yes," said the doctor, "and if I hadn't found your ten dollars you
wouldn't have become President of the United States."

Many a true word is spoken in jest. It might have happened that the boy
would have been so depressed by the loss of his money that he would have
given up his plan of going to Hiram and returned home to fill an humbler
place in the world.

But it is time to return from this digression and resume our narrative.

Devoted to his profession, young Garfield had given but little attention
to politics. But in the political campaign of 1857 and 1858 he became
interested in the exciting political questions which agitated the
community, and, taking the stump, he soon acquired the reputation of a
forcible and logical stump orator. This drew the attention of the voters
to him, and in 1859 he was tendered a nomination to the Ohio Senate from
the counties of Portage and Summit. His speeches during the campaign of
that year are said to have been warm, fresh, and impassioned, and he was
elected by a handsome majority.

This was the first entrance of the future President upon public life.
The session was not long, and the absence of a few weeks at Columbus
did not seriously interfere with his college duties.

In the Senate he at once took high rank. He was always ready to speak,
his past experience having made this easy. He took care to inform
himself upon the subjects which came up for legislation, and for this
reason he was always listened to with respectful attention. Moreover,
his genial manners and warmth of heart made him a general favorite among
all his fellow legislators, whether they belonged to his party or to the
opposition.

Again, in the session of 1860-61, being also a member of the Senate, he
took a prominent part in such measures as were proposed to uphold the
National Government, menaced by the representative men of the South. He
was among the foremost in declaring that the integrity of the Union must
be protected at all hazards, and declared that it was the right and duty
of the Government to coerce the seceded States.

When the President's call for seventy-five thousand men was made public,
and announcement was made to the Ohio Senate, Senator Garfield sprang to
his feet, and amid loud applause moved that "twenty thousand troops and
three millions of money" should be at once voted as Ohio's quota! He
closed his speech by offering his services to Governor Dennison in any
capacity.

This offer the Governor bore in mind, and on the 14th of August, 1861,
Garfield was offered the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the Forty-second Ohio
regiment, which he had been instrumental in forming.

It was a serious moment for Garfield. The acceptance of this commission
would derange all his cherished plans. It would separate him from his
wife and child, and from the loved institution of which he was the head.
He must bid farewell to the calm, studious life, which he so much
enjoyed, and spend days and months in the camp, liable at any moment to
fall the victim of an enemy's bullet.

Suppose he should be killed? His wife would have no provision but the
small sum of three thousand dollars, which he had been able by great
economy to save from his modest salary.

He hesitated, but it was not for long. He was not a man to shrink from
the call of duty. Before moving he wrote to a friend:

"I regard my life as given to the country. I am only anxious to make as
much of it as possible before the mortgage on it is foreclosed."




CHAPTER XXI.

A DIFFICULT DUTY.


Having made up his mind to serve his country in the field, Garfield
immediately wrote to the Governor accepting the appointment.

The regiment to which he was assigned was recruited from the same
counties which he represented in the State Senate. A large number of the
officers and privates had been connected as students with Hiram College,
and were personally known to Garfield.

His first step was to qualify himself for his new position. Of the art
and mystery of war the young scholar knew little, but he was no worse
off than many another whom the exigencies of his country summoned from
peaceful pursuits to the tented field and the toilsome march. It was
probably the only office which he ever assumed without suitable
qualifications. But it was not in his nature to undertake any duties
without endeavoring to fit himself for their discharge.

His method of studying the art of war was curious and original. Falling
back on his old trade of carpenter, he brought "his saw and jack-plane
again into play, fashioned companies, officers and non-commissioned
officers out of maple blocks, and with these wooden-headed troops he
thoroughly mastered the infantry tactics in his quarters." There was
this advantage in his method, that his toy troops were thoroughly
manageable.

The next step was to organize a school for the officers of his regiment,
requiring thorough recitation in the tactics, while their teacher
illustrated the maneuvers by the blocks he had prepared for his own
instruction. He was obliged to begin with the officers, that they might
be qualified to assist him in instructing the men under their command.
He was then able to institute regimental, squad, skirmish, and bayonet
drill, and kept his men at these exercises from six to eight hours daily
till the Forty-second won the reputation of being the best drilled
regiment to be found in Ohio.

My boy readers will be reminded of the way in which he taught geometry
in one of his winter schools, preparing himself at night for the lesson
of the next day. I would like to call their attention also to the
thoroughness with which he did everything. Though previously ignorant of
military tactics he instructed his regiment in them thoroughly,
believing that whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well.

He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, but by the time his organization
was completed he was promoted to the Colonelcy.

At last the preliminary work was completed. His men, an undisciplined
body when he took them in hand, had become trained soldiers, but as yet
they had not received what Napoleon III. called the "baptism of fire."
It is all very well to march and countermarch, and practice the ordinary
evolutions like militia-men at a muster, but how was the regiment, how
was its scholarly commander likely to act in the field?

On the 14th of December orders for the field were received by Colonel
Garfield's command, stationed at Camp Chase.

Then came the trial of parting with wife and mother and going forth to
battle and danger. To his mother, whose highest ambition had been that
her son should be a scholar, it was doubtless a keen disappointment that
his settled prospects should be so broken up; but she, too, was
patriotic, and she quietly said: "Go, my son, your life belongs to your
country."

Colonel Garfield's orders were to report to General Buell at Louisville.
He moved his regiment by way of Cincinnati to Catlettsburg, Kentucky, a
town at the junction of the Big Sandy and the Ohio, and was enabled to
report to his commander on the 19th of December.

Then, for the first time, he learned what was the nature of the duty
that was assigned to him. It was no less than to save Kentucky to the
Union. A border State, with an interest in slavery, public opinion was
divided, and it was uncertain to which side it would incline. The
Confederates understood the value of the prize, and they had taken
measures, which promised to be successful, to wrest it from the Union.
The task had been committed to Gen. Humphrey Marshall, who had invaded
Eastern Kentucky from the Virginia border, and had already advanced as
far north as Prestonburg.

Gen. Marshall fortified a strong natural position near Paintville, and
overran the whole Piedmont region. This region contained few slaves--but
one in twenty-five of the whole population. It was inhabited by a brave
rural population, more closely resembling their Northern than their
Southern neighbors. Among these people Marshall sent stump orators to
fire them with enthusiasm for the Confederate cause. Such men would make
valuable soldiers and must be won over if possible.

So all that portion of the State was in a ferment. It looked as if it
would be lost to the Union. Marshall was daily increasing the number of
his forces, preparing either to intercept Buell, and prevent his advance
into Tennessee, or, cutting off his communications, with the assistance
of Beauregard, to crush him between them.

To Colonel Garfield, an inexperienced civilian, who had only studied
military tactics by the aid of wooden blocks, and who had never been
under fire, it was proposed to meet Marshall, a trained soldier, to
check his advance, and drive him from the State. This would have been
formidable enough if he had been provided with an equal number of
soldiers; but this was far from being the case. He had but twenty-five
hundred men to aid him in his difficult work, and of these eleven
hundred, under Colonel Craven, were a hundred miles away, at Paris,
Kentucky, and this hundred miles was no level plain, but a rough,
mountainous country, infested with guerrillas and occupied by a disloyal
people.

Of course, the first thing to be done was to connect with Colonel
Craven, but, considering the distance and the nature of the country to
be traversed, it was a most difficult problem. The chances were that
Gen. Marshall, with his vastly superior force, would attack the two
bodies of soldiers separately, and crush them before a union could be
effected.

Gen. Buell explained how matters stood to the young colonel of
volunteers, and ended thus:

"That is what you have to do, Colonel Garfield--drive Marshall from
Kentucky, and you see how much depends on your action. Now go to your
quarters, think of it overnight, and come here in the morning and tell
me how you will do it."

In college Garfield had been called upon to solve many difficult
problems in the higher mathematics, but it is doubtful whether he ever
encountered a more knotty problem than this one.

He and Colonel Craven represented two little boys of feeble strength,
unable to combine their efforts, who were called upon to oppose and
capture a big boy of twice their size, who knew a good deal more about
fighting than they did.

No wonder the young colonel felt perplexed. But he did not give up. It
was not his way. He resolved to consider whether anything could be done,
and what.

My chief object in writing this volume being to commend its subject as
an example for boys, I think it right to call attention to this trait
which he possessed in a conspicuous degree. Brought face to face with
difficulty--with what might almost be called the impossible, he did not
say, "Oh, I can't do it. It is impossible." He went home to devise a
plan.

First of all, it was important that he should know something of the
intervening country--its conformation, its rivers and streams, if there
were any. So, on his way to his room he sought a book-store and bought
a rude map of Kentucky, and then, shutting himself up in his room, while
others were asleep, he devoted himself to a lesson in geography. With
more care than he had ever used in school, he familiarized himself with
the geography of the country in which he was to operate, and then set
himself to devise some feasible plan of campaign.

It was a hard problem, and required still more anxious thought, because
the general to whom he was to report it, was, unlike himself, a man
thoroughly trained in the art of war.

The next morning, according to orders, he sought again his commanding
officer.

Gen. Buell was a man of great reticence and severe military habits, and
if the plan were weak or foolish, as might well be from the utter lack
of experience of the young officer who was to make it, he would
unhesitatingly say so.

As Garfield laid his rude map and roughly outlined plan on the table,
and explained his conception of the campaign, he watched anxiously to
see how Gen. Buell was impressed by it. But the general was a man who
knew how to veil his thoughts. He waited in silence till Garfield had
finished, only asking a brief question now and then, and at the end,
without expressing his opinion one way or the other, merely said:
"Colonel Garfield, your orders will be sent you at six o'clock this
evening."

Garfield was not compelled to wait beyond that hour.

Promptly the order came, organizing the Eighteenth Brigade of the Army
of the Ohio, under the command of Colonel Garfield, with a letter of
instructions, embodying essentially the plan submitted by the young
officer in the morning.

When Garfield set out with his command the next morning, Gen. Buell said
to him at parting:

"Colonel, you will be at so great a distance from me, and communication
will be so difficult, that I must commit all matters of detail and much
of the fate of the campaign to your discretion. I shall hope to hear a
good account of you."




CHAPTER XXII.

JOHN JORDAN'S DANGEROUS JOURNEY.


Col. Garfield had already sent on his regiment in advance to Louisa,
twenty-eight miles up the Big Sandy.

There he joined them on the 24th, having waited at Catlettsburg only
long enough to forward to them necessary supplies.

The arrival of the regiment was opportune, for the district was
thoroughly alarmed. A regiment had been stationed there--the Fourteenth
Kentucky--but had hastily retreated to the mouth of the river during the
night of the 19th, under the impression that Marshall was advancing with
his forces to drive them into the Ohio. It was a false alarm, but the
Union citizens were very much alarmed, and were preparing with their
families to cross the river for safety. With the appearance of
Garfield's regiment a feeling of security returned.

I am anxious to make plain to my boy readers the manner in which the
young colonel managed his campaign. I think they will have no difficulty
in understanding that Garfield had two very difficult things to
accomplish. Colonel Craven knew nothing of Garfield's advance, nor of
his plans. It was necessary to inform him. Again, if possible, a
junction must be effected. The first was difficult, because the
intervening country was infested with roving bands of guerrillas, and a
messenger must take his life in his hands. How, again, could a junction
be effected in the face of a superior enemy, liable to fall upon either
column and crush it?

Obviously the first thing was to find a messenger.

Garfield applied to Col. Moore of the Fourteenth Kentucky, and made
known his need.

"Have you a man," he asked, "who will die rather than fail or betray
us?"

"Yes," answered the Kentuckian, after a pause, "I think I have. His name
is John Jordan, and he comes from the head of the Blaine."

This was a small stream which entered the Big Sandy, a short distance
from the town.

At the request of Garfield, Jordan was sent for. In a short time he
entered the tent of the Union commander.

This John Jordan was a remarkable man, and well known in all that
region. He was of Scotch descent, and possessed some of the best traits
of his Scotch ancestry. He was a born actor, a man of undoubted courage,
fertile in expedients, and devoted to the Union cause.

Garfield was a judge of men, and he was impressed in the man's favor at
first sight. He describes Jordan as a tall, gaunt, sallow man, about
thirty years of age, with gray eyes, a fine falsetto voice, and a face
of wonderful expressiveness. To the young colonel he was a new type of
man, but withal a man whom he was convinced that he could trust.

"Why did you come into this war?" he asked, with some curiosity.

"To do my share, colonel, and I've made a bargain with the Lord. I gave
Him my life to start with, and if He has a mind to take it, it's His.
I've nothing to say agin it."

"You mean you have come into the war, not expecting to get out of it
alive?"

"Yes, colonel."

"You know what I want you to do. Will you die rather than let this
dispatch be taken?"

"I will."

Garfield looked into the man's face, and he read unmistakable sincerity.

He felt that the man could be trusted, and he said so.

The dispatch was written upon tissue paper. It was then rolled into the
form of a bullet, coated with warm lead, and given into the hands of the
messenger. He was provided with a carbine and a brace of revolvers, and
when the moon was down, he mounted his horse in the darkness and set out
on his perilous journey.

It would not do to ride in the daytime, for inevitably he would be
stopped, or shot down. By day he must hide in the woods, and travel only
at night.

His danger was increased by the treachery of one of his own comrades of
the Fourteenth Kentucky, and he was followed by a band of guerrillas in
the Confederate interest. Of this, however, Jordan was not apprised, and
supposing himself secure he sought shelter and concealment at the house
of a man whom he knew to be loyal. Near enough to see, but not to be
seen, the guerrillas waited till the tired messenger was sleeping, and
then coming boldly out of the woods, surrounded the house.

In a fright the good housewife ran up to his chamber, and shook the
sleeping man.

"Wake for your life!" she said. "The guerrillas are outside, clamoring
for you. I have locked the doors, but I can not keep them out long."

Jordan had thrown himself on the bed with his clothes on. He knew that
he was liable to be surprised, and in such an event time was most
valuable. Though awakened from a sound sleep, he had all his wits about
him.

"Thank you," said he. "I have a favor to ask in the name of our cause."

"Be quick, then," said the woman. "They are bursting open the door."

"Take this bullet. It contains a secret dispatch, which, if I am killed,
I enjoin upon you to convey to Colonel Craven, at Paris. Will you do
it?"

"If I can."

"Then I am off."

The door burst open, but he made a sudden dash, and escaped capture. He
headed for the woods, amid a volley of bullets, but none of them reached
him. Once he turned round, and fired an answering shot. He did not stop
to see if it took effect, but it was the messenger of Death. One of the