The old adage that he who crosses a bridge before he comes to it is a fool, was proven in my case. From the moment of insisting that I should be the one to act as messenger, there had been before my mind all kinds of dangers to be encountered, and I had vexed myself with the belief that there was hardly more than one chance out of twenty that I could go through in safety, and yet I did, never seeing friend or foe until I was come, as nearly as I could judge, to within a mile of where Morgan had said the Americans were encamped. Then suddenly, while I was half-running half-walking along the highway, dreaming no evil, came a voice from the thicket on my right, shouting: "Halt, or I'll fire! Halt, I say!" [Illustration: "HALT, OR I'LL FIRE!"] On the instant I obeyed the command, my heart standing still as it were with terror, for I made certain I had blundered upon a British scouting party, and one can well fancy the relief of mind which was mine when there came out from amid the foliage a man in the uniform of our own Virginia riflemen, who was followed by two others, and I knew I had been stopped by a friend to the Cause. By this time, it is needless for me to say, the new day had come, and they could see me as clearly as I could them, therefore I counted on being given a friendly welcome, instead of which he who acted as commander of the squad, and I counted he was a corporal at the very least, asked as if in anger: "Where are you from in such haste, and where going?" "From York Town, and with a message to General Lafayette." "You from York Town?" he cried with a coarse laugh. "You from York Town wanting to see the marquis?" "Ay, that I am," was my angry reply. "Why should I not come from York, and why should a boy of Virginia not carry a message to a general who is serving in the American army?" "There is no reason why he should not, providing it was being done honestly; but there are Virginians who would go from Cornwallis to Lafayette on anything rather than honest business. If you are acting as messenger, who in the town of York would send you?" For an instant the name of Morgan trembled on my lips, and then I realized in what danger I might put the spy by thus proclaiming that he had enlisted in the British army, while the man, seeing me hesitate, laid his hand heavily upon my shoulder, as he said in what sounded very like a tone of triumph: "If you were bent on honest business there is no reason why you should delay in saying who sent you. It looks to me much more as though you were one of the Tory spawn that infest Virginia, and were counting on learning what you might concerning our people."