After some
moments of the keenest mental suffering I ven-
tured to ask another question:
'Who rescued me?'
'Well, if that interests you--I did.'
'Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God bless you
for it. Did you rescue, also, that charming product
of your skill, the automaton chess-player that mur-
dered its inventor?'
The man was silent a long time, looking away
from me. Presently he turned and gravely said:
'Do you know that?'
'I do,' I replied; 'I saw it done.'
That was many years ago. If asked to-day I
should answer less confidently.
A TOUGH TUSSLE
ONE night in the autumn of 1861 a man sat alone
in the heart of a forest in western Virginia. The
region was one of the wildest on the continent--the
Cheat Mountain country. There was no lack of
people close at hand, however; within a mile of
where the man sat was the now silent camp of a
whole Federal brigade. Somewhere about--it might
be still nearer--was a force of the enemy, the num-
bers unknown. It was this uncertainty as to its
numbers and position that accounted for the man's
presence in that lonely spot; he was a young officer
of a Federal infantry regiment and his business
there was to guard his sleeping comrades in the
camp against a surprise. He was in command of a
detachment of men constituting a picket-guard.
These men he had stationed just at nightfall in an
irregular line, determined by the nature of the
ground, several hundred yards in front of where
he now sat.
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