We reached Adairsville before the expected freight, but had only just taken our place on the side track when its whistle was heard. When it came up, Andrews, who still personated a Confederate officer, and exacted and received the obedience which in those days of conscription and impressment was readily yielded to military authority, ordered the train to be run past the station and back again on the side track behind his own, to wait for the expected passenger train. The usual explanations about the powder train were repeated to credulous ears. Then came five minutes of suspense and waiting. The train was behind time,--a trifling matter in itself, but, in our situation, each minute might turn the scale between death and life. We could not afford to repeat the experience of Kingston. Not one bridge had yet been burned, and all we could show for our hazard, beside our captured train, were a few cross-ties and lifted rails. After a whispered word of consultation with his engineer, who was willing to assume the most deadly risks rather than to lie still, Andrews remarked to the bystanders that a government powder express must not be detained by any number of passenger trains, and then gave the word, "Go ahead!" We started quite moderately, but, as soon as the station was out of sight, we noticed a wonderful acceleration of speed. The cars seemed almost to leap from the track, and we whirled from side to side at a bewildering rate. There was scarcely any slackening for curves or grades, and our whistle rang out with scarcely a moment's cessation. In the box-car we could retain no position for more than an instant, and were jostled over each other and against the sides of the car much oftener than was pleasant. No one of us had ever rode at such a rate before. Though we had no means of measuring the speed, none of us estimated it at less than a mile a minute. What was the meaning of such a break-neck pace? Had Andrews discovered that we were pursued, and was he making a desperate effort to escape from the enemy? Or was he simply hurrying to the bridges we were to burn? Such questions were easier asked than answered, for two cars and the tender intervened between us and the locomotive, on which our leader was. At any rate, the moments were rapidly carrying us towards our own lines, and a very few hours of such running would see us delivered from the series of perils which had so long environed us. We had learned that just beyond Calhoun, a station only ten miles from Adairsville, there was a large bridge, which we knew was marked for destruction. If that was passed without stopping, we would be convinced that an enemy was on our track, and that the race was simply for life. A few minutes would decide. But in the mean time, as an enemy might be following us, it occurred to the writer that it would be well to continue obstructing the track. This was accomplished by breaking open the hind end of the last box-car, and shoving out one by