A thousand times that day Hilary wished, as they went on their journey together, that he had never seen this man again. All Jack Bixby’s methods were false, and it revolted Hilary, educated to a simple but strict code of morals, to seem to share in his lies and his dubious devices to avoid giving a true account of themselves. In fact their progress was menaced with some danger. Having little to distinguish them as soldiers, for the gray cloth uniform in many instances had given place to the butternut jeans, the habitual garb of the poorer classes of the country, they could be mistaken for citizens, peacefully pursuing some rustic vocation, and this impression Bixby sought to impose on every party who questioned them. He feared to meet the Federals, because of their paroles, which showed them to be prisoners and yet out of the lines, and he thought this broken pledge might subject them to the penalty of being strung up by the neck. “That air tale ’bout our bein’ in the lines an’ the lines shrinkin’ till we got out o’ ’em ain’t goin’ ter go down with no sech brash fellers,” he argued with some reason, for the probabilities seemed against them. And now he dreaded an encounter with Union men, non-combatants, for the same reason. He slipped off his boot at one time and hid the paper under the sole of his foot. “Ef we-uns war ter be sarched they wouldn’t look thar, mos’ likely.” And finally when they reached the house of an aged farmer, who with partisan cordiality welcomed and fed them, declaring that although he was too old to fight he could thus help on the southern cause, Bixby took advantage of his host’s short absence from the dining-room to strike a match which he discovered in a candlestick on the mantel piece, for the season was too warm for fires, and lighting the candle he held the parole in the flame till the paper was reduced to a cinder; then he hastily extinguished the candle. When once more on the road, however, Bixby regretted his decision. For aught he knew they were still within the Federal lines. The Union troops had doubtless been reinforced, for they were making a point of holding this region at all hazards. He was a fool he said to have burnt his parole--it was his protection. If he were taken now by troops not in the extreme activities of resisting a spirited cavalry attack, who had time to make his capture good, and means of transportation handy, he would be sent off to Camp Chase or some other prison, and shut up there till the crack of doom, whereas his parole rendered him for the time practically free. “Why didn’t you keep me from doin’ it, Hil’ry?”