"Yes, sir, and for eighteen years a fugitive. I have become accustomed to constant flying, to battling blood-hounds and their no less brutal owners, to all the mysteries of wood craft. Many are the bloodhounds that I have put to death, and have sent more than a few negro hunters plunging over the steep cascades and mountain sides to certain death. For eighteen years my life has been devoted to the liberation of my poor race, and I can number by hundreds the fugitives whom I have induced to leave their masters and have guided to where freedom awaited them."
"What are you doing here?"
"I am the sutler's steward, and, strange as you may think it, Captain Tompkins, I have come with the regiment on purpose to be near you. I have a story, a sad, dark story to tell you, that will strike you with wonder and horror. In these times life is uncertain and I must be near you when my time comes. I have written it, and the manuscript can not be lost; my trunk, in the sutler's camp, holds it."
The strange being was gone, and Abner was left alone to wonder.
CHAPTER XXVII. A PRISONER.
The year 1862 passed, darkened by battle smoke, saddened by the groans of the dying, the tears shed over the dead. Abner Tompkins had been acting principally in Eastern Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky. His regiment had suffered severely in some of McClellan's hardest fought battles. His colonel had been killed at Fair Oaks on the 31st of May, 1862, and Captain Tompkins had been promoted to the vacant place.
It was the 2nd of May, 1863, and Abner and his command, now under General Hooker, having crossed the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers, were advancing on Chancellorville, to meet a powerful Confederate force under Stonewall Jackson.
Yellow Steve, who was still the sutler's steward on the morning of the first day's fight at Chancellorsville, came to the Colonel's tent, just as he was preparing to take charge of his regiment.