While making, by means of our glasses, such observations as we could from our "coigne of vantage," a large balloon suddenly loomed up before us, which seemed to hang almost over our heads
Like a huge hawk in mid-air poised,
To pounce upon his prey,
so we deemed it prudent to retrace our steps before we were discovered. This little scouting expedition made it late in the morning before I left for Richmond, and I remember that my twenty-five miles' ride there was, by all odds, the hottest and most exhausting that I've ever had before or since.
The next day I saw Mr. Davis, said all that was necessary upon the object of my interview, and soon thereafter had the satisfaction of accompanying Jackson to a more congenial climate and in more active fields of duty.
