"They're going to try and make the Central wait over," was the answer, "but I'd bet high on our being later'n we think for. Once a fellow gets off his schedule on this road, he's more apt to be losing all the time than gaining." The colonel and I looked at each other a moment in some dismay. Quandary though it was, there was nothing for it but to wait, and wait we did, two--three hours. The darkness grew intense back towards the Tennessee; the loungers in the waiting-room or platform in groups of two or three, rose, yawned, stretched themselves, "'Lowed t'warn't no use waitin'; could see the derned train any other night just as well," and took themselves and their tobacco-juice off. The lights across the way, beyond the tracks, died out one by one, until only those two were left which represented the rival saloons, still keeping open for the presumable benefit of some prowler hoping to get trusted for a drink. Finally only the station-master and ourselves were left, all drowsy, but the former still seated, with his one remaining hand close to his telegraph instrument. Still no news of the train. I began to doze. It could not have been more than ten or fifteen minutes before the clicking of the instrument aroused me. Having long since ceased to care whether the train now came or not, since we had heard by nine that the Central would not wait, I only sleepily gazed at the operator. The colonel had gone asleep, and the sound did not awake him. But another moment the expression on the face of the man sitting so intently over his table aroused me to eagerness. At first professionally indifferent, it grew suddenly clouded; then a look of keen distress came upon it as he quickly glanced around at his old comrade. I involuntarily sprang up and approached the table. He had written half the message, then dropped pencil and hammered away at the key. "For him," said he, with a backward jerk of the head to indicate the colonel. It seemed an endless time before he could get the thing straightened out and the message written. "Please wake him," said he. I gently shook Harrod's shoulder. He started up with soldierly promptitude. "Train coming?" he asked, as he began gathering his traps. "Not yet, colonel. It's news from the boys, the cavalry." "Got to New Orleans all right?" "Got there; but--read for yourself." With a face that paled even in the dim light of the station, and lips that trembled under his moustache, the colonel read, handed it to me without a word, and turned away. This was the message: "NEW ORLEANS, Tuesday. "COLONEL H. SUMMERS, Sandbrook Station, M. and C. R. R., Alabama. "Arrived yesterday. Vinton dangerously ill; delirious. Post surgeons in charge. If possible, come. "FRANK AMORY." Then we three looked at one another with faces sad and blanched. Harrod was the first to speak. "May I take your horse, Billy?" "Yes, and the house and barn if it'll help."