So, in the bleak darkness of the next morning, at the same hour on which his son had left home scarcely a week before, Rhett Bannister kissed his wife and his sleeping child good-by, and set forth on a mission which, even in his most hopeful moments, promised him only bitter and disastrous failure. Up the dark road, in the face of the chill October wind, he hurried, into the streets of Mount Hermon, past the home of Sarah Jane Stark, making the same détour around the village that Bob had made, coming out into the main road where he had come, hurrying on in the gray light of the morning, toward his hoped-for destination. But, farther on, he left the main highway and struck off across the country by a little-traveled road, expecting to reach a way station on the railroad a few miles beyond Carbon Creek, and there meet the morning train. In this effort he was successful. He met no one on the way, nor did any one at the station recognize him. But he had no sooner boarded the train than that happened which he might have expected. Soldiers in uniform arose mysteriously and one stood guard at each door of the car, and another one, followed by an officer, came down the aisle and stopped at the conscript’s seat. “Is your name Bannister?” inquired the officer. “It is,” responded the man. “Rhett Bannister of Mount Hermon, at your service; drafted by the government, classed as a deserter, and on my way to join the Army of the Potomac in Virginia.” “Good! you are our prisoner. Have you any arms about you?” The officer hastily and skillfully examined the prisoner’s clothing. “I am unarmed and defenseless,” replied Bannister. “I will go with you willingly. I am not disappointed nor surprised. I only ask to be heard by any officer in authority before whom you take me.” The mode of capture had been simple enough. The provost-guard had only to follow the conscript’s trail, to board the train at Carbon Creek, and be ready to apprehend him when he should appear. They did not handcuff him. He was entirely in their power, and it was apparent that he would make no resistance. And so the notorious copperhead, the man who had denounced Abraham Lincoln, who had ridiculed the draft, who had defied the Federal army, was at last a prisoner of the United States. Within five minutes the fact of his identity was known to every person on the train. Men hissed and jeered at him as he was taken into an adjoining car, and women looked on him with detestation. At a station where a change of cars was made, a sympathizer, with more zeal than discretion, attempted, in a loud voice, to argue justification for the prisoner. But his oratory was soon drowned in a storm of protest, and he himself was buffeted by the crowd till he was glad to escape.