The clerk having conducted us to our room, withdrew from the chamber and closed the door after him. “I wonder if there is a lock on the door?” said my companion. “There ought to be,” I replied. “We should secure it by some means, at all events.” “Yes,” he remarked, “I always make it a rule, when traveling, to see that every thing is secure.—Yes, here is a lock and bolt,” he said, as he walked to the door and examined it. He turned the key and shot the bolt. “Are you going to the Cave to-morrow?” “Yes, that is my object.” “Did you come on the train from Louisville?” “Yes; did you?” “Yes, I too. I am from Missouri: and you?”— “I am from Pennsylvania.” “Were you engaged in the war?” “Yes.” “Federal side, I suppose.” “Yes; and were you also—” “Confederate.” “Exactly. Well, we are fellow-citizens and countrymen once more, and let us congratulate each other that the strife is over. If you are going in the stage in the morning, we will be traveling companions, and, I am sure, will prove agreeable to each other, notwithstanding that we have been fighting in opposing armies, and possibly shooting at each other.” “I agree with you,” he replied, “and was about to make such a remark myself. True soldiers never carry animosities home with them, when the contest on the field is over.” My Confederate companion was a young man of prepossessing appearance, twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, intelligent, affable and polite; and, as the lamp was extinguished and we retired to our respective beds in opposite corners of the room, I congratulated myself on my prospect of having an agreeable companion to join me in my visit to the Mammoth Cave on the morrow. Nor was I mistaken. My new acquaintance proved to be all that he appeared—a perfect gentleman. With a confidence I seldom feel while a stranger is sleeping in the same room with me, I fell asleep, and enjoyed a good night’s rest, after my ride on the train from Louisville. CHAPTER XXX. JOHN SMITH’S ABSENCE FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH. NEXT morning, having taken breakfast, we got into the coach, and departed for the Mammoth Cave, which we reached after a not unpleasant ride of ten miles, over a hilly and wooded country. It was one of the pleasantest days of the year, and the conversation between my companion and myself was of such an agreeable nature, that when we reached the hotel near the cave, I fancied we had scarcely traveled half-a-dozen miles. The length of time we had been on the road, however, indicated that we must have traveled fully ten miles. It was about ten o’clock. We each paid two dollars for the services of a guide; and the latter providing three lanterns, and some combustible material for temporary lights at certain particular points, accompanied us into a deep valley near by: and in this valley, in so obscure a place as to be almost hid from the eyes of men, we found the entrance to the renowned Mammoth Cave.