Sadly, gloomily the autumn days came on, and the land was rife with war and rumors of war. In the vicinity of Spring Bank were many patriots, but there were hot Secessionists there also, and bitter contentions ensued. Old friends were estranged, families were divided, neighbors watched each other jealously, while all seemed waiting anxiously for the result. Blacker, and darker, and thicker the war clouds gathered on our horizon, but our story has little to do with that first year of carnage, when human blood was poured as freely as water, from the Cumberland to the Potomac. Over all that we pass, and open the scene again in the summer of ‘62, when people were gradually waking to the fact that Richmond was _not_ so easily taken, or the South so easily conquered. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DESERTER. There had been a desertion from a regiment on the Potomac. An officer of inferior rank, but whose position had been such as to make him the possessor of much valuable information, was missing from his command one morning, and under such circumstances as to leave little doubt that his intention was to reach the enemy’s lines if possible. Long and loud were the invectives against the traitor, and none were deeper in their denunciations than Captain Hugh Worthington, as, seated on his fiery war-horse, Rocket, he heard from Irving Stanley the story of _Dr. Richards’_ disgrace. “He should be pursued, brought back, and shot!” he said, emphatically, feeling that he would like much to be one of the pursuers already on the track of the treacherous doctor, who skillfully eluded them all, and just at the close of a warm summer day, sat in the shadow of the Virginia woods, weary, foot-sore and faint with the pain caused from his ankle, sprained by a recent fall.