From Canal Boy to President Part 21

"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 guerrillas reeled, and measured his length upon the ground, dead in a moment.

Fleet as a deer the brave scout pushed on till he got within the protecting shadows of the friendly woods. There they lost the trail, and though he saw them from his place of concealment, he was himself unseen.

"Curse him!" said the disappointed leader. "He must have sunk into the earth, or vanished into the air."

"If he's sunk into the earth, that is where we want him," answered another, with grim humor.

"You will find I am not dead yet!" said the hidden scout to himself. "I shall live to trouble you yet."

He pa.s.sed the remainder of the day in the woods, fearing that his pursuers might still be lingering about.

"If there were only two or three, I'd come out and face 'em," he said, "but the odds are too great. I must skulk back in the darkness, and get back the bullet."

Night came on, and the woman who had saved him, heard a low tapping at the door. It might be an enemy, and she advanced, and opened it with caution. A figure, seen indistinctly in the darkness, stood before her.

"Who are you?" she asked doubtfully.

"Don't be afraid, ma'am, it's only me."

"And you--"

"Are the man you saved this morning!"

"G.o.d be thanked! Then you were not killed?"

"Do I look like a dead man? No, my time hasn't come yet. I foiled 'em in the wood, and there I have spent all day. Have you any victuals, for I am famished?"

"Yes, come in."

"I can not stay. I will take what you have and leave at once, for the villains may be lurkin' round here somewhere. But first, the bullet!

have you that safe?"

"Here it is."

The scout put it in his pocket, and taking in his hand a paper box of bread and meat which his loyal hostess brought him, resumed his hazardous journey.

He knew that there were other perils to encounter, unless he was particularly fortunate, but he had a heart prepared for any fate. The perils came, but he escaped them with adroitness, and at midnight of the following day he was admitted into the presence of Colonel Craven.

Surely this was no common man, and his feat was no common one.

In forty-eight hours, traveling only by night, he had traversed one hundred miles with a rope round his neck, and without the prospect of special reward. For he was but a private, and received but a private's pay--thirteen dollars a month, a shoddy uniform, and hard-tack, when he could get it.

Colonel Craven opened the bullet, and read the dispatch.

It was dated "Louisa, Kentucky, December 24, midnight"; and directed him to move at once with his regiment (the Fortieth Ohio, eight hundred strong) by way of Mount Sterling and McCormick's Gap, to Pres...o...b..rg. He was to enc.u.mber his men with as few rations as possible, since the safety of his command depended on his celerity. He was also requested to notify Lieutenant-Colonel Woodford, at Stamford, and direct him to join the march with his three hundred cavalry.

On the following morning Col. Craven's column began to move. The scout waited till night, and then set out on his return. The reader will be glad to learn that the brave man rejoined his regiment.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GARFIELD'S BOLD STRATEGY.

Garfield didn't wait for the scout's return. He felt that no time was to be lost. The expedition which he had planned was fraught with peril, but it was no time for timid counsels.

On the morning following Jordan's departure he set out up the river, halting at George's Creek, only twenty miles from Marshall's intrenched position. As the roads along the Big Sandy were impa.s.sable for trains, and unsafe on account of the nearness of the enemy, he decided to depend mainly upon water navigation for the transportation of his supplies.

The Big Sandy finds its way to the Ohio through the roughest and wildest spurs of the c.u.mberland Mountains, and is a narrow, fickle stream. At low-water it is not navigable above Louisa, except for small flat-boats pushed by hand. At high-water small steamers can reach Piketon, one hundred and twenty miles from the mouth; but when there are heavy freshets the swift current, filled with floating timber, and the overhanging trees which almost touch one another from the opposite banks, render navigation almost impracticable. This was enough to intimidate a man less in earnest than Garfield. He did not hesitate, but gathering together ten days' rations, he chartered two small steamers, and seizing all the flat-boats he could lay hands on, took his army wagons apart, and loaded them, with his forage and provisions, upon the flat-boats.