for him, although the handsome fee he was to receive when his task was accomplished was a decided stimulant. He really had the best of it, however, in having some work to do, for the night air was bitter cold, and I was thinly clad. I would have been glad to have taken a turn at the oars, just for the sake of warming myself, had I believed myself possessed of the physical strength to wield them with efficiency. I was too eager to get over this unpleasant and hazardous part of my journey, however, to incur any delay by attempting to pull an oar, and bore the sharp winds that swept over the water, and at times seemed to cut me to the bones, with what equanimity I could command.
At length we reached the Maryland side of the river, to my infinite satisfaction, for I was numb with the cold, and stiff in all my limbs, from the cramped position in which I had been obliged to sit in the boat, and was heartily glad of an opportunity to tread dry land once more. Dismissing the boatman, and enjoining him not to say anything, I made my way to a farm-house which I espied a short distance from the place of landing, and about four o'clock in the morning, finding no better place to rest my weary limbs, I crept into a wheat-stack, and slept there until daylight.
I scarcely know whether to say that I enjoyed this sort of thing or not. For a thinly clad woman to find no better place for repose during a chilly night in the latter part of October, after having endured the cutting blasts for three hours while crossing the Potomac in an open boat, was certainly hard lines. It is true that, for some months, I had accustomed my self to tolerably rough living, but this was a trifle rougher than anything I had as ye"t experienced. As there was no one but myself to applaud my heroism, this particular episode did not, and could not, have the same attraction that some even more perilous ones had; and yet, despite the discomforts of the situation, I had a certain amount of satisfaction, and even of pleasure, in going through with it. My enjoyment if I can designate my peculiar emotions by such a word I can only attribute to my insatiable love for adventure; to the same overmastering desire to do difficult, dangerous, and exciting things, and to accomplish hazardous enterprises, that had induced me to assume the dress of the other sex, and to figure as a soldier on the battle-field.
When I crept into that wheat- stack, however, I was not in a mood to indulge in any philosophical reflections on the sit-
