The discovery of his horse in a distant part of the plantation had concentrated the search there. The darkies who finally got the reward did not rejoice much in it, for in finding the overseer, they knew they were finding a cruel taskmaster and his cruel whip. But the story of his discomfiture by three negroes, for he had never known that Tom's sooty face was really white, soon spread through the countryside. He became a neighborhood joke and in his wrath at being made a butt he resigned as Mr. Izzard's overseer. Leaving this place deprived him of his immunity from conscription. He was promptly seized by the nearest Confederate officer and impressed into the army. The Izzard negroes had the infinite joy of seeing their hated ex-overseer marched off under guard to a Confederate camp, to serve as a private soldier. Tom was destined to see Jake Johnson again. * * * * * Two nights they rowed down the river, almost without a word, afraid to speak lest someone in the infrequent houses and still more infrequent villages along the banks should hear them. Wise old Towser knew enough not to bark when men about him kept so still. He lay always where with nose or paw or tail he could touch Tom. The latter was the commander of the expedition and Towser felt it and became his abject slave accordingly. At the close of the second night they had reached the Tennessee River. By day they camped upon shore in some hidden place, first craftily secreting the boat amid rushes and reeds. From their second hiding-place, they saw about noon a Confederate gunboat, a small stern-wheel steamboat, with cotton-bales at her bow and stern screening her two guns. Though she was making all possible speed up the current, she moved but slowly. Her decks were thick with excited men. A babble of voices reached the fugitives, peering at her behind a mass of bushes. The few words that could be made out told them nothing. The sight of her, however, warned them that a new danger might await them on the traveled waters of the Tennessee. Their hearts would have beat higher, had they known that General Mitchell had pushed south from Huntsville and that Union forces were then encamped in strength upon the river, not many miles below where they were cowering. The Confederate gunboat had been steaming upstream to escape capture.