The train was speeding away, leaving Washington City behind, when our party first began to realize that they were really "off" and to take in their surroundings. Captain and Mrs. Neville sat together about midway in the car. Clarence and Corona sat immediately behind them. On the opposite side sat Mrs. Neville's colored maid, Manda, and in the rear corner, on the same side, the captain's orderly--a new recruit. About half the remaining seats in the car were occupied by other travelers. At Harper's Ferry, amid the most beautiful and sublime mountain scenery of Virginia, the train stopped twenty minutes for dinner, which, in those ante-bellum days, was well served from the hotel at the depot. After dinner, the train started off again at express speed, stopping but at few stations, until near night, when it reached North End Junction, where Mr. Clarence was to get off. "Cora, my darling, we must part here," said Mr. Clarence, gathering up his effects, as the train slackened speed. "Oh, Uncle Clarence! Dear Uncle Clarence! God bless you! God bless you!" sobbed Corona. "Keep up your heart, dear one. You may see me sooner than you dream of. The missionary mania is sometimes contagious. You have it in its most pronounced form. And I have been sitting by you for eight hours," replied Mr. Clarence, forgetting his prudent resolution to say nothing to Corona of an incipient plan in his mind. "What do you mean, dear Uncle Clarence?" she anxiously inquired. "I hardly know myself, Corona. But ponder my words in your heart, dear one. They may mean something. Here we are! Good-by! Good-by! God bless you!" exclaimed Mr. Clarence. "Good-by! God bless you!" cried Corona, and they parted--Clarence jumping off the train just as it started again, at the imminent risk of his life, yet with lucky immunity from harm. Corona, looking through the side window, saw him standing safely on the platform waiting a North End train to come up--saw him only for an instant as her train flashed onward, and "pondered his words in her heart," and wondered what they meant. CHAPTER XXXIV. ON THE FRONTIER. Traveling in the ante-bellum days, even by steamboats and railway trains, was not the rapid transit of the present time. It took one day for our travelers to reach Wheeling. There they embarked on a river steamer for St. Louis. On Monday morning they took a steamboat for Leavenworth, where they arrived early in the evening. This was the first and best part of their long journey. The second part must of necessity be very different. Here their railway and steamboat travel ceased, and the remainder of their course to the far southwestern frontier must be by military wagons through an almost untrodden wilderness.