expense of a messenger to the rebel officer, at Deer Creek, with this
proposition. The Union officer at Helena accepted the proposition, and
the messenger was sent off. It was arranged that he should stop over at
our house, both on his way down and back. Upon his return, he stopped
over night, and the next morning proceeded on his way. When he had gone
about five miles, he saw a flat-boat at a landing, on which were people
drinking and having a merry time. He stopped, and went aboard; and, in
joining the carousal, he soon became so intoxicated that he was unable
to go on with his journey. Among those present was one Gilcrease, a
cousin of the McGees, who recognized the man as the messenger in this
important business, went to him and asked him for the letters he
carried. The fellow refusing to give them up, Gilcrease took them from
him, and at once sent to our overseer for a reliable man by whom to
forward them to the commandant at Helena. The overseer called me up
from the cabin to his room, and told me that I was to go to Helena to
carry some important papers, and to come to him for them in the morning,
and make an early start. I left him and went back to my cabin.

* * * * *

MY THIRD EFFORT FOR FREEDOM.

I made up my mind that this would be a good chance for me to run away. I
got my clothes, and put them in an old pair of saddle bags--two bags
made of leather, connected with a strip of leather, and used when
traveling horseback for the same purpose as a satchel is used in
traveling in the cars. I took these bags, carried them about a half mile
up the road, and hid them in a fence corner, where I could get them in
the morning when I had started on my trip. Fryer's Point, the place to
which I was to go, was about fifty miles from the farm. I started early