is; you'll be surprised, and if you aint very strong of heart, it will go nigh to sicken you. But it does good to see it for one's self; it makes one strong against tyranny."
"It grows very dark here."
"That's water before you, and a good big pond, too," said Davis.
"This is the track, major;" and Humphries led the way to the left, inclining more in the direction of the river. A sullen, child-like cry, succeeded by a sudden plunge into the water, indicated the vicinity of an alligator, which they had disturbed in his own home; the rich globules of light, showering over the water around him, giving a singular beauty to the scene, in every other respect so dark and gloomy. They kept continually turning in a zigzag fashion almost at every step, to avoid the waving vine, the close thicket, or the half-stagnant creek, crowded with decayed fragments of an older and an overthrown forest.
A shrill whistle at this moment, thrice repeated, saluted their ears. It was caught up in the distance by another, and another, in a voice so like, that they might almost have passed for so many echoes of the same.
"Our sentries watch closely, major; we must answer them, or we may sup on cold lead," said Humphries. As he spoke, he responded to the signal, and his answer was immediately followed by the appearance of a figure emerging from behind a tree that bulged out a little to the left of the tussock upon which they were now standing. The dim outline only, and no feature of the new-comer, was distinguishable by the group.
"Ha! Warner, you watch?—All's well; and now lead the way. Are all the boys in camp?"
"All!" was the reply; "and a few more come in from Buford's corps who know Frampton."
"And how is he?—does he know them?"
"He's in a bad fix, and knows nothing. You can hardly get word out of him since his wife's come."
"His wife! Why, man, what do you think of?—his wife's dead!" exclaimed Humphries with surprise.
"Yes—we know that; but he brought her, all the same as was alive, on his shoulders, and he won't give her up. There he
