began to gain in the race, both craft plunging into the great seas that had arisen, yet neither slackening speed. A fresh danger arose when the bearings of the engine became overheated from the enormous strain put upon them. It was necessary to stop, despite the imminence of the chase, and to loosen the bearings and feed them liberally with salad oil mixed with gunpowder before they were in working order again. Thus, fifteen weary hours passed away, and nightfall was at hand when the chaser, then only five miles astern, turned and gave up the pursuit. It was learned afterward that her stokers were dead beat.

But port was still far away, they having been chased one hundred and fifty miles out of their course, and fuel was getting perilously low. At the end of the third day the last coal was used, and then everything that would burn was shoved into the furnaces,-main-mast, bulwarks, deck cabin, with cotton and turpentine to aid,—and these only sufficed to carry them into a Bahama Island, still sixty miles from Nassau. They were not there two hours before they saw a Federal steamer glide slowly past, eying them as the fox eyed the grapes. The adventure was still not at its end. Mr. Taylor hired a schooner in the harbor to go to Nassau and bring back a cargo of coal, he and Murray Aynsely, a passenger, going in it. proved a terrible one, a hurricane rising, and the crew growing so terrified by the fury of the gale and the vividness of the lightning that they nearly

But the night

wrecked the schooner on the rocks. When the weather moderated the men refused to proceed, and it was only by dint of a show of revolvers and promise of reward that Taylor and his passenger induced them to go on. On reaching Nassau they were utterly worn out, having been almost without sleep for a week, while Taylor's feet were so swollen that his boots had to be cut off.

Thus ended one of the most notable chases in the history of blockade-running, it having lasted fifteen hours and covered nearly two hundred miles. Fortunate was it for the "Banshee" that the "James Adger," her pursuer, had no bow-chasers, and that the weather was too ugly for her to venture to yaw and use her broadside guns, or the "Banshee" might have there and then ended her career.

FONTAIN, THE SCOUT, AND THE BESIEGERS OF VICKSBURG.

THE Civil War was not lacking in its daring and interesting adventures of scouts, spies, despatchbearers, and others of that interesting tribe whose field of operations lies between the armies in the field, and whose game is played with life as the stake, this being fair prey for the bullet if pursued, and often for the rope if captured. We have the story of one these heroes of hazard to tell, a story the more interesting from the fact that he was a cripple who seemed fit only to hobble about his home. It is the remarkable feat of Lamar Fontain, a Confederate despatch-bearer, which the record of the war has nothing to surpass.

Fontain's disability came from a broken leg, which had left him so disabled that he could not take a step without a crutch, and in mounting a horse was obliged to lift the useless leg over the saddle with his right hand. But once in the saddle he was as good a man as his fellow, and his dexterity with the pistol rendered him a dangerous fellow to face when it became a question of life or death.

We must seek him at that period in 1863 when the stronghold of Vicksburg, on which depended the Confederacy's control of the Mississippi, was

closely invested by the army of General Grant, the siege lines so continuous, alike in the rear of the town and on the Mississippi and its opposite shore, that it seemed as if hardly a bird could enter or leave its streets. General Johnston kept the field in the rear, but Grant was much too strong for him, and he was obliged to trust to the chapter of chances for the hope of setting Pemberton free from the net by which he was surrounded.

Knowing the daring and usual success of Lamar Fontain in very hazardous enterprises, Johnston engaged him to endeavor to carry a verbal message to General Pemberton, sending him out on the perilous and seemingly impossible venture of making his way into the closely beleaguered city. In addition to his message, he took with him a supply of some forty pounds of percussion caps for the use of the besieged garrison.

On the 24th of May, 1863, Fontain set out from his father's home, at a considerable distance in the rear of the Federal lines. He was well mounted,

and armed with an excellent revolver and a good sabre, which he carried in a wooden scabbard to prevent its rattling. His other burdens were his packet of percussion caps, his blanket, and his crutches.

That night he crossed Big Black River, and before dawn of the next day was well within the lines of the enemy. Travel by day was now out of the question, so he hid his horse in a ravine, and found a place of shelter for himself in a fallen tree that overlooked the road. From his hiding-place he saw

a confused and hasty movement of the enemy, seemingly in retreat from too hot a brush with the garrison. Waiting till their columns had passed and the nightfall made it safe for him to move, he mounted again and continued his journey in the direction of Snyder's Bluff on the Yazoo.

Entering the telegraphic road from Yazoo City to Vicksburg, he had not gone far before he was confronted and hailed by a picket of the enemy. Spurring his spirited steed, he dashed past at full speed. A volley followed him, one of the balls striking his horse, though none of them touched him. The good steed had received a mortal wound, but by a final and desperate effort it carried its rider to the banks of the Yazoo River. Here it fell dead, leaving its late rider afoot, and lacking one of his crutches, which had been caught and jerked away by the limb of a tree as he dashed headlong past.

With the aid of his remaining crutch, and carrying his baggage, Fontain groped his way along the river side, keenly looking for some means of conveyance on its waters. He soon found what he wanted in the shape of a small log canoe, tied to a tree on the river bank. Pressing this into his service, and disposing himself and his burden safely within, he paddled down the stream, hoping to reach the Mississippi and drift down to the city front before break of day.

Success was not to come so easily. A sound of puffing steam came from down the river, and soon a trio of gunboats loomed through the gloom, head