Fortunately it was a specially good saddle, richly mounted with silver, and otherwise decorated to please the fancy of the dandy Federal officer from whose dead horse Duncan had captured it after its owner had been left stark upon the field in the Wilderness. It brought him now a good price in money, and to this the purchaser generously added a little store of provisions, including, for immediate use, some fresh meat--the first that had passed Duncan's lips for more months past than he could count upon the fingers of one hand. A little later the young man sold his pistols, but as he pushed onward toward the Ohio River he found that both traveling and living in a prosperous country were far more expensive than traveling and living in war-desolated and still moneyless Virginia. His little store of funds leaked out of his pockets so fast that, economize as he might, he found it necessary to ask for work here and there on his journey. It was spring time, and the farmers were glad enough to employ him for a day or two each. The wages were meagre enough, but Duncan accepted them gladly, the more so because the farmers in every case gave him board besides. Now and then he secured odd jobs as an assistant to mechanics. In one case he stoked the furnaces of a coal mine for a week. But he did not remain long in any employment. As soon as he had a trifle of money or a little stock of provisions to the good, he moved onward toward the river. His one dominating and ever-growing purpose was to reach Cairo. What fortune might await him there he knew not at all, but since he had scratched that address on the butt of a pistol, the desire to reach Cairo had daily and hourly grown upon him until it was now almost a passion. The name "Cairo" in his mind had become a synonym for "Opportunity." It was about the middle of May when the toilsome foot journey ended at Wheeling. There Duncan, still wearing his tattered uniform, made diligent inquiry as to steamboats going down the river. He learned that one of the great coal-towing steamers from Pittsburg was expected within a few hours, pushing acres of coal-laden barges before her, and he was encouraged by the information, volunteered on every hand, that the work of "firing up" under the boilers of these coal-towing boats was so severe that a goodly number of the stokers always abandoned their employment in disgust of it, and deserted the boat if she made a landing at Wheeling, as this approaching one must do for the reason that a number of coal-laden barges had been left there for her to take in tow. It was Guilford Duncan's hope to secure a place on her as a stoker or coal passer, to take the place of some one of the deserters. This might enable him, he thought, to earn a little money on the way down the river, instead of depleting his slenderly stocked purse by paying steamboat fare.