‘Ah! waal, maybe he did. Sorter knocks out one’s belief in one’s feller-critters, though, runnin’ up agin a pestiferous calamity like that cunnel. Howsumever, we got the bulge on him, we did. My! Luce, ye air a man right down ter yer boots!’ ‘I’m a miserable coward, that’s what I am,’ said Lucius passionately. ‘After the way I behaved in the balloon, I wonder you would do anything for me.’ He shuddered, though, as he spoke, at the frightful reminiscence. ‘Ez ter thet,’ returned Ephraim, ‘nobody could say a word agin ye fer bein’ sot back. ’Twar an onusual kind er stomachful fer a young man jest out fer a picnic.’ ‘That’s all very well,’ lamented Lucius, ‘but I disgraced myself. You know I did.’ ‘Shucks!’ remarked Ephraim. ‘Look at what ye did jest now. But say,’ he went on, wishful to close the discussion, ‘we can’t stay here after what that red-faced old lump er mischief said.’ ‘What did he say?’ inquired Lucius. ‘I was so busy getting away that I’m afraid I was rude enough not to pay any attention.’ ‘Same here,’ grinned Ephraim; ‘but I heard him ‘tween whiles. “Foller them up,” he yells ter the soldiers. “Ye’ll drive ’em straight inter our lines.”’ ‘What did he mean by that?’ asked Lucius. ‘I should have thought we were within the Yankee lines when we were taken prisoners.’ ‘Waal, we kinder war, and we kinder warn’t,’ said Ephraim. ‘This is the way I put it up,’ he went on to explain with considerable shrewdness. ‘I ’magine thar must hev been a fight somewhar around hyar, and the cunnel thar, whatever his name is, has lit out er harm’s way. He started off ter make his way back ter the camp, gatherin’ up men ez he went along, and unfortnitly fer us, he happened ter cross the clearin’ et the precise moment we came down in it.’ Which, as the reader knows, is just what had happened. ‘Well, he’ll have a fine story to tell when he does get back to camp,’ laughed Lucius. ‘Won’t he?’ laughed Ephraim back. ‘Ye may resk your last dime he won’t make no small thing of it. My! I wish we could be thar ter hear him.’ ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Lucius hilariously. ‘I’ve had enough of him for one day. I shall be quite content to read his speech in the papers.’ ‘Ho! ho! ho!’ guffawed Ephraim. ‘Ain’t ye jest ticklish, Luce!’ They were both so overjoyed at their escape from the double danger of the morning that they had no room left for further apprehension. But presently Ephraim was recalled to a sense of the gravity of the situation by the distant notes of a bugle. ‘Hear thet!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thet tells ye. Say, Luce, it won’t do fer us to set still hyar. Don’t ye know this kentry’s full er Yanks. It’s bound ter be. We must try and make our way ter old Stonewall’s lines.’ ‘Where are they, I wonder,’ said Lucius. ‘I wish I knew. Fact is, I’d no idee we could hev come so fer. I thort we must be close home.’ He called it _hum_. ‘So did I,’ agreed Lucius. ‘Old Blue Bag, as you call that horrible balloon, must have travelled far and fast.’