CHAPTER XXX.
ON DUTY AS A SPY.
I receive a mysterious Note requesting me to meet the Writer. I go to the appointed Place, and find an Officer of the Secret Service Corps who wants me to go through the Lines with Despatches. I accept the Commission, and the next Day go to Meridian for the Purpose of completing my Arrangement and receiving my Instructions. A Visit to General Ferguson's Headquarters. Final Instructions from the General, who presents me with a Pistol. I start for the Federal Lines, and ride all Night and all the next Day. A rough and toilsome Journey. I spend the Night in a Negro's Cabin. Off again at three o'clock in the Morning with an old Negro Man for a Guide. We reach the Neighborhood of the Federal Pickets, and I send my Guide back. I bury my Pistol in a Church. I am halted by a Picket-guard and am taken to Moscow. A Cross-examination by the Colonel in Command. Satisfactory Result for myself. On the Train for Memphis. Insulting Remarks from the Soldiers. A Major interferes for my Protection. Off for General Washburn's Headquarters.
HORTLY after my arrival at Mobile, I received a rather mysterious note in a masculine hand, asking me to meet the writer that evening at the corner of the square, but giving no hint whatever of the purpose of the invitation. I hesitated for some little time about taking any notice of the request, thinking that if the writer had any real business "with me, he would seek me out and communicate with me in a some less mysterious way. On a little reflection, however, I concluded that it would be best for me to meet the gentleman, whoever he might be, according to the terms of his invitation, and to find out who he was and what he wanted. I felt tolerably well able to take care of myself, although I was aware that the circumstances of my army career being rather extensively known, I was especially liable to annoyances of a peculiarly unpleasant kind from impertinent people. Anything of this sort I was resolved to resent in such a manner that
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