here two days since, and told us that orders had
come to occupy the millers dwelling-house for that purpose."

Horse Shoe had now entered the cabin with David Ramsay, and in the
course of the hour that followed, during which the family had prepared
refreshment for the travellers, the sergeant had fully canvassed all the
particulars necessary to be known for his future guidance. It was
determined that he and John should remain in their present concealment
until night, and then endeavor to reach the mill under cover of the
darkness, and open some means of communication with the family of the
miller.

The rest of the day was spent in anxious thought. The situation of the
adventurers was one of great personal peril, as they were now
immediately within the circle of operations of the enemy and likely to
be observed and challenged the first moment they ventured upon the
road.

The hour of dusk had scarcely arrived before they were again mounted on
horseback. They proceeded cautiously upon the road that led through the
wood, until it intersected the highway; and, having attained this point,
John Ramsay, who was well acquainted with every avenue through the
country, now led the way, by a private and scarcely discernible path,
into the adjacent forest, and thence, by a tedious and prolonged route,
directed his companion to the banks of the Ennoree. This course of
travel took them immediately to the plain on which Innis had been
encamped--the late field of battle. All here was still and desolate. The
sheds and other vestiges of the recent bivouac were yet visible, but not
even the farm-house that had constituted Innis's head-quarters was
reoccupied by its original inhabitants. The bat whirred over the plain,
and the owl hooted from the neighboring trees. The air still bore the
scent of dead bodies which had either been left exposed, or so meagrely
covered with earth as to taint the breeze with noisome exhalations.

"There is a great difference, John," said Horse Shoe, who seldom let an
occasion to moralize after his own fashion slip by, "there's a great
difference between a hot field and a stale one. Your hot field makes a
soldier, for there's a sort of a stir in it that sets the blood to
running merrily through a man, and that's what I call pleasure. But when
everything is festering like the inside of a hospital--or what's next
door to it, a grave-yard--it is mighty apt to turn a dragoon's stomach
and make a preacher of him.