* * * * *


JOHN LAMAR.


The guard-house was, in fact, nothing but a shed in the middle of a
stubble-field. It had been built for a cider-press last summer; but
since Captain Dorr had gone into the army, his regiment had camped over
half his plantation, and the shed was boarded up, with heavy wickets at
either end, to hold whatever prisoners might fall into their hands
from Floyd's forces. It was a strong point for the Federal troops, his
farm,--a sort of wedge in the Rebel Cheat counties of Western Virginia.
Only one prisoner was in the guard-house now. The sentry, a raw
boat-hand from Illinois, gaped incessantly at him through the bars, not
sure if the "Secesh" were limbed and headed like other men; but the
November fog was so thick that he could discern nothing but a short,
squat man, in brown clothes and white hat, heavily striding to and fro.
A negro was crouching outside, his knees cuddled in his arms to keep
warm: a field-hand, you could be sure from the face, a grisly patch of
flabby black, with a dull eluding word of something, you could not tell
what, in the points of eyes,--treachery or gloom. The prisoner stopped,
cursing him about something: the only answer was a lazy rub of the
heels.

"Got any 'baccy, Mars' John?" he whined, in the middle of the hottest
oath.

The man stopped abruptly, turning his pockets inside out.