As I approached the entrance to the canal, I observed standing on the south bank, a man with a gun in his hand and dressed in outing costume, whose figure and attitude reminded me of someone I had seen before. “Can it be possible,” I said to myself, “that that is Allan Ocheltree?” By the time the boat touched the land, I had made sure that it was and I sprang ashore to greet him. The recognition and gratification at meeting were mutual. Our friendship for each other, was always the closest friendship either of us had. We had been room-mates and class-mates for four years at college, and our temperaments and tastes were like complementary colors, of such harmonious contrast as to fit each other to a T. In our class we were to each other like the two end men of a minstrel troup; he at one end—the head end—and I at the other. It is singular how people, like drift wood on the stream of time, are at times drifted toward each other and float along together till some eddy or obstruction in the current separates them, and hurries them off in diverging directions, perhaps to meet again farther down the stream, it may be more than once. Sometimes a leave-taking under circumstances, that seem to forebode it to be the last and clothe it in gloom, and sorrow, is nevertheless not the last by many; while a cheerful good-by with a light hearted “ta-ta-old-fellow-see-you-to-morrow,” may prove the beginning of a separation destined to endure for years—perhaps forever. The Ocheltree family and my ancestors, were from the same Scotch-Irish stock, were friends and neighbors near Belfast and emigrated to Maryland about two hundred and thirty years ago, settling at first in Somerset County. A few years later they moved north into Cecil County, and from there in 1760 a large emigration took place to Mechlenburg County, North Carolina. Among these emigrants, were Duncan Ocheltree and my grandfather’s Uncle John. These two were friends and neighbors in the new settlement and when the revolutionary war broke out, they both adopted the patriotic cause. The Mechlenburg declaration of independence was adopted and signed May 20th or 31st, 1775, by a convention of which John was secretary, and it was supported by Duncan. But in 1780, Lord Cornwallis overran the state and captured Charlotte, the county seat of Mechlenburg, and Duncan, believing all was lost, hastened to turn Tory and make his submission to his lordship in order to save his wealth of which he had acquired a goodly share. This was a bad break and he made it worse by the supererogatory zeal of a new convert, in harassing his former friends and piloting the red-coated foragers to their hay stacks, hen roosts and pig pens, not sparing his old friend John. But the triumph of Cornwallis was short; in a few days, he was obliged to evacuate Charlotte and then Duncan realized that he had placed himself in a very bad position. As the British troops were packing their knapsacks