This same negro had been strung up by the thumbs by Sherman's troops a few months before because he would not tell where his master's mules were hidden. He piloted General Toombs through the woods to the home of Colonel David Hughes, a prominent and wealthy farmer of Twiggs County. Colonel Hughes had been in Toombs' brigade, and the general remained with him a week. General Toombs was sitting on the piazza of Colonel Hughes's house one afternoon when an old soldier asked permission to come in. He still wore the gray, and was scarred and begrimed. He eyed General Toombs very closely, and seemed to hang upon his words. He heard him addressed as Major Martin, and finally, when he arose to leave, wrung the general's hand. "Major Martin," he said, brushing the tears from his eyes, "I'm mighty glad to see you. I wish to God I could do something for you." At the gate he turned to Colonel Hughes and said: "I know who that is. It is General Toombs. You can't fool me." "Why do you think so?" Colonel Hughes asked. "Oh, I remember Gray Alice jumping the stone walls at Sharpsburg too well to forget the rider now." "Colonel," he continued, "this morning a man near here, who is a Republican and an enemy of General Toombs, thought he recognized him near your house. He saw him two hundred yards away. I heard him say he believed it was Toombs and he wished he had his head shot off. I came here to-night to see for myself. You tell General Toombs that if he says the word, I will kill that scoundrel as sure as guns." The veteran was persuaded, however, to keep quiet and do nothing of the sort. It was at this time that Lieutenant Irvin found that the ferries of the Ocmulgee River were guarded from one end to the other. Near this place Davis had been captured and the Union troops were on a sharp lookout for Toombs. Convinced that further travel might be hazardous, General Toombs and his friend rode back to the mountains of North Georgia, and there remained until the early fall. It was in the month of October that the fugitives again started on their checkered flight. The May days had melted into summer, and summer had been succeeded by early autumn. The crops, planted when he started from home that spring day, were now ripening in the fields, and Northern statesmen were still declaring that Toombs was the arch-traitor, and must be apprehended. Davis was in irons, and Stephens languished in a dungeon at Fortress Monroe. Passing once more near Sparta, Ga., Toombs met, by appointment, his friends, Linton Stephens, R. M. Johnson, W. W. Simpson, Jack Lane, Edge Bird, and other kindred spirits. It was a royal reunion, a sort of Lucretia Borgia feast for Toombs--"eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow we may die."