During the colloquy Colonel C. made a significant motion to his fellow-officer, not unobserved by the watchful refugee. The Methodist minister being of a timid nature, had meanwhile taken a seat at the farther end of the long front porch, with his hat pulled over his ears to avoid recognition. Soon night fell, supper was announced, and while it went forward Dr. Stanford, feigning illness, rose from the table and went down the road he had just traveled until a covert of bushes was reached. He knew that the two Confederate officers would shortly pass by on their way from Cumberland Gap to Bean’s Station in the great valley of East Tennessee, and from weary waiting in concealment he was at length relieved by the sound of their horses’ feet approaching. When arrived opposite the spot where he hid, they halted, and the owner of a cabin across the way obeyed their summons to its door. Frightened at first by the thought that he was about to be discovered, he soon dismissed all anxiety upon over-hearing the conversation that ensued between Col. Cummings and the man of the house, to whom the former gave a letter for delivery to the army messenger who would pass by the next morning to Cumberland Gap. At a very early hour the next day, the two refugees resumed their journey. When they were entirely beyond hearing upon the road, the physician said to the minister: “I think it probable that Col. Cummings has left a letter to be sent to the Gap for our arrest there. If the messenger carrying it overtakes us on the way, I shall instantly shoot him.” At that early period of the war, people generally were unaccustomed to the pre-meditated destruction of human life, and some of them at least were slow to think of it as wearing any complexion but that of bloody murder. It is not surprising, therefore, that the face of the Christian minister, on hearing the deadly intention of his companion, should have lost its usual color. “He turned as white as a sheet.” Arrived at Cumberland Gap without adventure, Dr. Stanford met with a Confederate Lieutenant--his personal friend--who had joined the army under constraint. The young man, knowing the mind of the refugee, gave him in conversation without the camp and under the pledge of secrecy, the word and sign by which he might pass the sentries on the road over the Gap.[26] The minister earnestly dissuaded him from attempting to cross the mountain, and failing in this effort, lay sleepless throughout the night, tossed with fears of ills that would befall them on the morrow. Breakfast over, the Doctor rode unconcernedly on his way without any interference from the sentinels, while the minister, abandoning the enterprise, stood and watched his companion’s progress in ascending the mountain gap.