I went to Providence, where I was empowered to return to Cannelton to pay Goshorn $5,000, and renew the leases on Elk River. I should have to travel post to anticipate the Yankee. It was not concealed from me that even if I succeeded, I had before me a very dangerous and difficult task. But after what I had already gone through with I was ready for anything. I was really developing rapidly a wild, reckless spirit--the "Injun" was coming out of me. My old life and self had vanished like dreams. Only now and then, in the forests or by torrents, did something like poetry revisit me; _literature_ was dead in me. Only once did I, in a railway train, compose the "Maiden mit nodings on." I bore it in my memory for years before I wrote it out. I arrived in Philadelphia. The next morning I was to rise early and fly westward. No time to lose. Before I rose, my sister knocked at the door and told us the awful news that President Lincoln had been murdered! As I went to the station I saw men weeping in the streets, and everybody in great grief, conversing with strangers, as if all had lost a common relation. Everywhere utter misery! I arrived in Pittsburg. It was raining, and the black pall of smoke which always clothes the town was denser than ever, and the long black streamers which hung everywhere as mourning made the whole place unutterably ghastly. In the trains nothing but the murder was spoken of. There was a young man who had been in the theatre and witnessed the murder, which he described graphically and evidently truthfully. I reached Cincinnati, and as soon as possible hurried on board the steamboat. We went along to Charleston, and it will hardly be believed that I very nearly missed the whole object of my journey by falling asleep. We had but one more very short distance to go, when, overcome by fatigue, I dropped into a nap. Fortunately I was awakened by the last ringing of the bell, and, seizing my carpet-bag, ran ashore just as the plank was to be withdrawn. I went directly to Goshorn's hotel. He was a stout, burly man, shrewd in his way, good-natured, but not without temper and impulses. He looked keenly after business, played the fiddle, and performed a few tricks of legerdemain. He had a ladylike wife, and both were very kind to me, especially after they came to know me pretty well. The lady had a nice, easy horse, which ere long was lent me freely whenever I wanted to ride. One day it was missing. The master grieved. They had named it after me in compliment. "Goshorn," I said, "in future I shall call _you Horse- gone_." But he was not pleased with the name. However, it was recovered by a miracle, for the amount of horse-stealing which went on about us then was fabulous.