Harry Hayward was indeed found, and the cavalcade, bearing him on a rude litter, after a half-hour’s time, made its appearance coming down the mountain. Nettleton was at his side, crying like a baby. Wells held the sick man’s hand, while his face, still expressing anxiety, beamed with joy. Hayward was discovered hidden in a quiet, cool nook, where he lay in a very exhausted condition. He had, in his fever-delirium, broken away from Madge’s custody, but, no sooner was he out in the cool shade of the trees and rocks than his mind became clear and composed. Weak and ill as he was he still had strength to seek a place of safety from pursuit, should it be attempted, as he supposed it would be. At nightfall he had determined to seek out some respectable looking farm-house, and on the morrow to cast himself upon the mercy of strangers, knowing that even though that stranger might be a foe he could not be more inhuman than men wearing the uniform of Confederate officers. But the sufferer was spared further efforts. The shouts and reports of fire-arms Hayward distinctly heard, and at once surmised that a Union force was at hand. When the men scattered in squads for the search through the mountain, the captain beheld one of the parties passing before his hiding-place. It was his moment of deliverance. He stepped out before the astonished soldiers, who, not recognizing the apparition, did not at once welcome him. “My men, don’t you know me?” “Captain Hayward!” they shouted, as they rushed upon him, and clasped him in their arms. He was borne toward Madge’s cabin, to be welcomed on the way by the gathering men. Wells now appeared. The joy of that meeting can be surmised. The welkin was made to ring with the glad notes of the jubilant soldiers. These notes it was which aroused the sleeper in the cabin, and when at length he appeared, struggling wearily up the hill, the cavalcade paused to permit the overjoyed parties a few minutes of undisturbed greeting. Nettleton was not even talkative—a circumstance indicative of the depth of his feelings—and it was not until the captain was fully domiciled in the cabin, that he could consent to talk of the past and its painful incidents. He then narrated the events of Walker’s plot, as we have here recorded them, ending with the tragedy of the mill. It was a revelation of intense but most painful interest to the sick man; but he bore the affliction of his sister’s loss with great resolution, sustained by the conviction that He who doeth all things well would not permit the evil one to triumph. CHAPTER XIII. _The Cave and the Contest for Life._