believe he could ever return, was so great that I felt no desire for food,
but ate it from a sense of duty, even as I had turned my back on my
comrade when he needed aid.

One does not make haste with such a meal, and when I had swallowed the
last dry crumbs, which were like to have choked me, the day had fully
come.

It can readily be imagined that we crept even nearer the edge of the
thicket than was really safe in order to get some idea of our position,
and to my great surprise and delight I found that we had come in as direct
a course as if we had followed a blazed trail.

There before us, and less than three hundred yards distant, was the
fortification over which was floating the flag made from Capt. Abraham
Swartwout's cloak, and because we were on high ground it was possible to
see the Americans moving about within, bent on this task or that duty.

After one hasty glance we crept back into the middle of the thicket, and
there, surrounded by hundreds of enemies, we two held a whispered
conversation regarding the situation.

It was only natural we should first congratulate each other on our good
fortune in having come unwittingly to the very spot we most desired to
gain, and then I said, simply giving words to the thoughts which had
entered my mind as I gazed upon the fortification:

"He who crosses the clearing between here and the fort, even though it be
in the night, needs to wriggle along like a snake, else will one of
Thayendanega's painted beauties lift his scalp."