. . .Tidings of general surrender had overhauled him on the way to it, near, I think, the city of Baltimore—somewhere in that region, at any rate; and he had been paroled and liberated, and had started penniless and on foot, south-westward along the railway-tracks.

To find him, Bonaventure must set out, like him on foot, south-eastward over some fifty miles of wagon-road to the nearest railway; eastward again over its cross-ties eighty miles to la ville, the great New Orleans, there to cross the Mississippi. Then away northward, through the deep, trestled swamps, leagues and leagues, across Bayou La Branche and Bayou Desair, and Pass Manchac and North Manchac, and Pontchatoula River two or three times; and out of the swamps and pine barrens into the sweet pine hills, with their great resinous boles rising one hundred—two hundred feet overhead; over meadows and fields and many and many a beautiful clear creek, and ten or more times over the winding Tang. . . Read More