A RACE FOR LIFE.–

30. March 2008 by admin.

A soldier from Rhode Island, while on picket-guard, was rushed upon by a party of rebel cavalry. He instantly fired his piece at the foremost, and ran. The way before him was an open field, about fifty rods across, the other side being hemmed in by an old, rotten, log fence, and, still beyond, a sort of chaparral of brier bushes and underbrush. To this retreat the soldier started, on quadruple quick, with half a dozen horsemen after him. Fortunately for the soldier, the rains had made the field quite muddy, and the horses slumped through the turf so badly that they could not lessen the distance between them and the fugitive. All this time the rebels were keeping up a roar of pistolry, one of the balls passing through the soldier’s hat, and another went clean through his cartridge box and lodged in his coat. Still on ran the hero, and still on splashed the horsemen. The picket at last reached the fence, and with one bound landed on the top, intending to give a long spring ahead; but the fence was frail, and crumbled beneath his weight. It so chanced that a hog had rooted out a gutter at this place, and was lying snoring therein. At the cracking of the fence, his swine-ship evacuated his hole, and scampered, barking, into the underbrush. As luck would have it, the soldier fell in that hole, muddy as it was, and the fence rattled down upon him. This was no more than fairly done, when up came the horsemen, and, hearing the rustling of leaves, and not doubting it was their prey, dashed through the gap in the fence, and, seeing a path in the brush, they put through it after the hog, and were soon out of sight. When the sound of their footsteps died away, the picket returned to camp and reported. The next day one of these rebel horsemen was taken prisoner. When our hero saw him he recognized him and once, and sung out:

“I say, old fellow, did you catch that hog yesterday?”

“We did that,” retorted the prisoner, “but it wasn’t the one we were after.”

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