“Well, friends, your loves are, no doubt, adorable, and it is a pleasant thing to talk over, but just now what we want is a way out of this trap”; and Jack, saying this, slipped from his horse and led him into the shelter of a thick growth of scrub-pines.  The rest followed his example.  They tied their animals and held a council of war.  It was resolved that Jack and Jones should make a reconnaissance to find out the route toward the Warrick; that Dick and Barney should secrete and guard the horses and do what they could to obtain some food.  This decision was barely agreed upon, when the shrill call of a bugle sounded almost among the refugees, and they sprang to their horses, waiting in silence the next demonstration.  Other bugles sounded farther away; a great cloud of dust arose in the direction of the water, and then Jack whispered: 

“Remain here.  I will climb one of these trees and see what it means.”

He was in the leafy boughs of a spreading pine in a few minutes, and could descry a broad plain, with tents scattered here and there; still farther on the broad uplands frame buildings with a red and white flag floating to the wind could be seen.  Back of all this he could make out a broad expanse of water and a few ungainly craft, lazily moving to the current in the Yorktown roadstead.

“Yes. this certainly must be Yorktown.  Why have they such a force here?  No one is threatening it,” Jack murmured, his eyes arrested by a long line of cavalry in undress, leading their horses up a circuitous and hitherto concealed road to the plateau.  “Ha! they go down there for water.  Let me see.  That is to the southeastward; that is our point of direction.  I think we may venture to push on now.”  He hastily descended from his survey, and making known what he had seen, added:  “We must proceed with the greatest caution.  There is no time to think of food until we get away from this dangerous neighborhood.  We must keep well spread out, and move only over turfy ground or in the deep shade of the wood.  In case of disaster, the cry of the night owl, as agreed upon, will be a warning.”

The four had practiced the melancholy cry of the owl, as heard in the Southern woods both day and night, and they could all imitate it sufficiently well to pass muster if the hearer were not on guard against the trick, and yet so clever an imitation that none of the four could mistake it.  So soon as they quit the plateau, seeking a way east by south, they plunged immediately into a dreary swamp, where progress was slow and difficult.  The mosquitoes beset them in swarms, plaguing even the poor animals with their lusty sting.  Hour after hour, until the woods became a hideous chaos of darkness and unseemly sounds, the four panting fugitives pushed on, fainting with hunger, worn out by the incessant battle with the corded foliage, the dense marshes, and quagmires through which their path to safety lay.  But at midnight Jones gasped and gave up the fight.