uld be absurd, unless our troops could first
destroy the dams and find an easy crossing.

By this time the middle of the afternoon had passed, and I was
famishing. I believed it impossible that I should be able to get any
food, and the thought made me still hungrier; yet I cast about me to see
if there was any way to get relief. I blamed myself for not having
brought food from camp. I had made up my mind to remain this night near
the river, as I could not get back to camp, seeing that my work was not
yet done, until the next day; so I must expect many hours of sharp
hunger unless I could find food.

I now felt convinced that on the rebel left there was a continuous line
of works behind the Warwick, from Lee's Mill up to Yorktown, and all I
cared to prove was whether that line had its angle at the former place,
as Nick had declared, and as seemed reasonable to me from every
consideration. I would, then, make my way carefully down the river to
Lee's Mill, and if possible finish my work before sunset; but my hunger
was so great that I thought it advisable to first seek food. So,
deferring my further progress down the stream, I set out in an easterly
direction by the road which had crossed previously above the second dam,
in the hope that this road would lead me to some house where help could
be found, for I was now getting where risks must be run; food was my
first need.

However, I did not expose myself, but kept out of the road, walking
through this woods. My road was soon enlarged by another road joining
it, coming in from the north and seeming well worn from recent use. I
had been walking for nearly a mile when I heard a noise behind
me--clearly the noise of horses coming. I lay flat behind a bush which
grew by a fallen tree. Three horsemen--rebels--passed, going southward.
They passed at a walk, and were talking, but their words could not be
distinguished. The middle man was riding a gray horse.

About half a mile, or perhaps less, farther on, the woods became less
dense, and soon I came to a clearing; in this clearing was what the
Southern people call a settlement, which consisted of a small farmhouse
with, a few necessary outbuildings.

Hitched to the straight rail fence that separated, the house yard from
the road, were three horses, one of them gray, with saddles on their
backs. I was not more than fifty yards distant from the horses, and
could plainly see a holster in front of one of the saddles.

No sound