340 OCEAN TO OCEAN ON HORSEBACK. 



of " the softest boards on the floor for a bed," and 

 otlier accommodations to match — a state of affairs wliich 

 a waylaid journeyman once had to face, who, with the 

 soul of a Stoic, left on his window-pane the comfort- 

 ing couplet : 



" Learn hence, young man, and teach it to your sons: 

 The easiest way's to take it as it comes." 



In fact I was doubly fortunate. No sooner had I 

 reached Decatur than I lost the consciousness of beino; 

 "a stranger within the gates,'^ having been so cordially 

 made to feel that I was among friends, and that the 

 cause which I had taken up in Michigan met with 

 their hearty sympathy. 



Duncombe House, 

 Decatur, Michigan, 



August Twenty-ninth. 



Met George L. Darby, an old comrade of the 

 " Harris Light," in the afternoon. He had noticed my 

 signature on the hotel register, and came at once to my 

 room, where after the heartiest of greetings we sat 

 down for a long talk. Thirteen years had slipped away 

 since the time of our capture at New Baltimore, Vir- 

 ginia, which led him to Belle Isle and me to Libby 

 Prison, and yet as we discussed it all, the reality of 

 those events seemed undiminished. Kilpatrlck, Stuart, 

 Fitzliugh Lee — their clever manoeuvring, and our 

 own unfortunate experiences on that day, kept us as 

 enthusiastically occupied as though it were not an old 

 story : but soldiers may be pardoned for recurring to 



