“Hi, there, what are you doin’ by that thar window?” called out the guard. “Trying to get some fresh air,” answered Louis, as coolly as he could. “This place is worse than a pig pen.” “It’s better nor you Yanks deserve,” growled the Confederate, and went on smoking his briar-root pipe filled with tar-heel tobacco. “The joist is loose,” whispered Louis to Hornsby a few minutes later. “I am going to risk a drop to the ground if I can get half a chance.” Hornsby shook his head. “They’ll shoot you, lad, if they see you. And if you do git away, where are ye going, tell me that? There are thousands of troops between us and our boys.” “Spies manage to come and go on both sides, Hornsby. If a spy can take care of himself, I guess I can--at least, I am going to try.” “And git ketched like thet air Caleb Fox.” “Well, he got away again,” went on Louis, but Hornsby would not listen. He would rather put up with ill-treatment than run too much risk, much as he desired his liberty. Louis lay down in a corner close to the window, but not to sleep. His mind was in a tumult. Should he try what was in his heart? He knew he could wrench the joist aside and drop from the window into the yard below with comparative ease. But after that? Ah, that was the all-important question. He might drop right into the hands of a guard below, and that would mean close confinement and possibly death. Or the guards might see him only to fire upon and kill him. Hour after hour went by and Louis heard a distant clock strike eleven, twelve, and then one. It was pitch dark outside, for another storm was brewing. The dim lantern in the hallway, where the guard stood, far from lit up the room. The guard, half asleep, leaned heavily against a wooden partition, while his companion, a few feet farther down the hallway, rested on an empty box. As slyly and quietly as a cat, Louis moved forward until he rested directly under the window he had worked upon. The end of the joist was within reach, and softly but firmly he pushed it aside, so slowly that it scarcely seemed to move. “Are ye really going?” It was the voice of Hornsby, in the youth’s ear. He had been watching the window in silence for three hours. “Yes,” was the soft answer. “I’ll try it, no matter what comes.” “Then I’ll go with you, lad, and God be with us in the undertaking,” concluded Hornsby. “Good-bye, if we’re both killed,” and he gave Louis’s hand a tight squeeze. An instant later Louis was up on the window sill. Turning about like a flash, he lowered himself to the full length of his arms. A second he hung there, then he let himself drop. CHAPTER XXV ANDY AND THE UNION PICKETS We will now go back to Andy, at the time he found himself so unexpectedly surrounded by Union skirmishers.