paces.

They soon reached the forest, which extended from one of greater extent
on the other side of the pike, though the scouts passed through only a
projecting corner of it. Beyond the end of the by-road, Milton
explained, was a portion of low ground, through which ran a small
stream. It was in this soft place that the wagon-train had mired. But
it had advanced a mile from the pike; and Milton declared that it was
moving by the longest way to hard ground, the shortest being to the
road they had used for two miles and a half.

"There they be!" exclaimed Life; and he reined in his foaming steed to
take a survey of the surroundings.

"That escort is having a hard time of it," added Milton.

"Thunder and lightning-bugs!" suddenly exclaimed the sergeant. "There's
a whole company of Cornfed cavalry after 'em."

"But they are having as hard a time of it as the escort of the wagons,
for their horses mire above their knees," added Milton. "But they are
getting ahead very slowly in spite of the soft soil."

"But whar be them Cornfeds gwine?" asked Life, who seemed to be
enamored of the name into which Butters had tortured the word. "They
ain't gwine the shortest way to the wagon-train."

"They are not; and I don't understand their game," answered Milton.

Suddenly, at an order from the commander of the company, the "Cornfeds"
dismounted, and proceeded to lead their horses; but the animals still
sank deep in the mud, even without the weight of their riders.

"Whar's that stream you spoke on, Milton?" asked Life, as he continued
to study the situation.

"Over to the left of you, and I've often fished it."

"I see it; how fur is it from that company?"

"Not more than a hundred rods from the head of the column."

"Is the bottom of the brook mud?"

"Not a bit of it. It is hard gravel below the top soil of mud."

"Then I reckon I know what them fellers are driving at," said Life,
apparently pleased with his solution of the question. "How deep is the
water?"

"From one to three feet, I should say."

"That's the idee! Them fellers is gwine to take to the stream," said
Life. "How wide is it?"

"From twenty to thirty feet in different places."

"Then it is wide enough for them to march in column of fours."

Life dismounted, and climbed a tree, which afforded him a view of the
winding stream. It passed within twenty rods of the mired wagons, and
probably the mud was not so deep nearer the woods as it was farther