Following instructions we had received, we soon reached the house of the man whose services as a guide we expected to secure to conduct us on our journey. As we approached it the dogs set up a furious barking. Mrs. Alderman soon succeeded in quieting the dogs, and we entered the house. On seeing no one but the woman, we asked where Alderman was. The woman said he wasn't at home, and she didn't know exactly where he had gone. We made known our object in calling at such a late hour in the night, it being near midnight. Mrs. Alderman was evidently alarmed at our coming. She wished to know how we learned that Alderman lived there. We told her a young man named Gillilan had piloted us to the foot of the ridge, and directed us how to find the house. We told her further that the young man had informed us her husband would conduct us a portion of the way to the Union lines. The woman's fear seemed to be allayed on hearing this, and she stepped out the door and called her husband. Mr. Alderman soon made his appearance, but acted as if he was not sure we were there on an honest errand. When his dogs commenced barking he had hurried out of bed, and gone to the woods to secrete himself--as he had often done before--from the Confederate guards, who were on the watch for him to impress him into the service. Our business was soon made known to Alderman, and he consented to conduct us as far on our way as we could travel by four o'clock the next day. It was after midnight when we made our bed on the floor of Alderman's cabin, to rest until the light of the 18th dawned. By sunrise we had breakfasted, and were on the way, Mr. Alderman going ahead of us several steps. Alderman carried his flint-lock gun with him, saying he "might shoot something before he got back." We suggested the risk in traveling by daylight, but Alderman said he would take us over a route where we would be seen by none but good Union people. By one o'clock we reached a house where lived a family named Ramsey. We took dinner with them. Shortly after two o'clock we set out again on the way. One of the Ramseys gave us a letter to be left at a point twenty miles east of Gauley Bridge, known as the Twenty-mile House. By four o'clock we had reached the small stream called Cherry Run, where we halted under a temporary shed which had been erected by hunters for shelter. We had no matches, and Alderman struck fire with his knife from the flint of his gun and kindled a fire for us. After receiving from Alderman particular directions how to find his brother-in-law's house, on the north side of Gauley River, he left us, saying he "must be at home by midnight."