Having gone some four or five miles, I saw before me a fence running at a right angle to the road I was on; this fence was not continued to the left of my road, so I supposed that at this fence was the junction of the road to Little Bethel, and as I had clearly seen before I started that at this junction there was danger of finding a rebel outpost, or of falling upon a rebel scouting party, I now became still more cautious, moving along half bent on the edge of the road, and at last creeping on my hands and knees until I reached the junction.

There was nobody in sight.  I looked long up the road toward Little Bethel; I went a hundred yards or so up this road, found nothing, and returned to the junction; then continued up the road toward Young’s Mill.  The ground here I knew must be visited frequently by the rebels, and my attention became so fixed that I started at the slightest noise.  The sand’s crunching under my feet sounded like the puffing of a locomotive.  The wind made a slight rippling with the ends of the tie on my hat-band, I cut the ends off, to be relieved of the distraction.

I was going at the rate of a mile a day, attending to my rear as well as to my advance, when I heard, seemingly in the road to Bethel, at my rear and right, the sound of stamping hoofs.  I slunk into a fence corner, and lay perfectly still, listening with all my ears.  The noise increased; it was clear that horsemen from the Bethel road were coming into the junction, a hundred yards in my roar.

The noises ceased.  The horsemen had come to a halt.

But had they come to a halt?  Perhaps they had ridden down the road toward Newport News.

Five minutes, that seemed an hour, passed; then I heard the hoof-beats of advancing cavalry, and all at once a man darted into my fence corner and lay flat and still.

It is said that at some moments of life, and particularly when life is about to end, as in drowning, a man recalls in an instant all the deeds of his past.  This may or may not be true; but I know, at least, that my mind had many thoughts in the situation in which I now found myself.

I felt sure that the party advancing on the road behind me were rebels.

They were now but a few yards off.

An instant more, and they would pass me, or else they would discover me.

If I should spring to my feet and run up the road, the horsemen would ride me down at once.

If I should climb the fence, my form, outlined against the sky, would be a mark for many carbines.

If I should lie still, they might pass without seeing me.

But what could I expect from my companion?

Who was he? ...  Why was he there? ...  Had he seen me? ...  Had the rebels, if indeed they were rebels, seen him? ...  If so, were they pursuing him?

But no; they were not pursuing him, for he had come from the direction of Young’s Mill.  He would have met the horsemen had he not hidden.