ered, so Simmons and I rushed into
the wood, swung around and out again and lay down on the edge of it,
in time to see them take Brumley and come sweeping by us in hot
pursuit. The main body stopped only a moment to inspect their capture,
gathering around poor Brumley so that we could not at first see what
had happened to him. Then several of them started back toward the
village, with him limping along at their side. Ten yards away a knot
of them gathered and assisted another up into a tree to watch for us.
One handed him a rifle and the pursuit went on into the wood.
Occasionally we heard the sentinel stirring.

We scarcely breathed. It seemed impossible that he could not hear the
pounding of our hearts. We grew quite stiff in our cramped positions,
but feared to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an hour
before we dared to worm our way cautiously in the other direction. The
snap of a twig was like that of a rifle on the stillness of the night.

Once we stopped, thinking that certainly he had heard us. It was only
the beat of a night bird's wings. We dared take only an inch at a
time, sliding forward on our bellies and then--waiting.

We met another sentry farther up, but worked around him in safety and
with more of ease, as we were by this time on our feet.

Arriving at the end of the small wood, we walked boldly across the
intervening fields to another one, large enough to afford cover for an
army corps, and there felt comparatively safe.

We were, however, very wet and cold and altogether miserable, buoyed
up only by the liberty ahead. As it was only two o'clock, we pushed on
for several hours before stopping to lie by for the day.

For days we carried on thus without discovery. Each night was a
repetition of the preceding one, an interminable fighting of our way
through dark forests, into and out of sloppy ditches, over fields and
through thorny hedges, dodging the lights of villages.

We went solely by the stars, which Simmons understood after a fashion,
and, aided by our map, we held fairly well to our general direction.
We had no other sources of information than our own good sense. We
watched the sky ahead at night for the glow which might indicate to us
the size of the community ahead; and aided by a close observation of
railroads, telegraph wires and the quality of the wagon roads and the
quantity of travel on them, were able to form fairly accurate
estimates of where we were and which place