By this time the middle of the afternoon had passed, and I was famishing.  I believed it impossible that I should be able to get any food, and the thought made me still hungrier; yet I cast about me to see if there was any way to get relief.  I blamed myself for not having brought food from camp.  I had made up my mind to remain this night near the river, as I could not get back to camp, seeing that my work was not yet done, until the next day; so I must expect many hours of sharp hunger unless I could find food.

I now felt convinced that on the rebel left there was a continuous line of works behind the Warwick, from Lee’s Mill up to Yorktown, and all I cared to prove was whether that line had its angle at the former place, as Nick had declared, and as seemed reasonable to me from every consideration.  I would, then, make my way carefully down the river to Lee’s Mill, and if possible finish my work before sunset; but my hunger was so great that I thought it advisable to first seek food.  So, deferring my further progress down the stream, I set out in an easterly direction by the road which had crossed previously above the second dam, in the hope that this road would lead me to some house where help could be found, for I was now getting where risks must be run; food was my first need.

However, I did not expose myself, but kept out of the road, walking through this woods.  My road was soon enlarged by another road joining it, coming in from the north and seeming well worn from recent use.  I had been walking for nearly a mile when I heard a noise behind me—­clearly the noise of horses coming.  I lay flat behind a bush which grew by a fallen tree.  Three horsemen—­rebels—­passed, going southward.  They passed at a walk, and were talking, but their words could not be distinguished.  The middle man was riding a gray horse.

About half a mile, or perhaps less, farther on, the woods became less dense, and soon I came to a clearing; in this clearing was what the Southern people call a settlement, which consisted of a small farmhouse with, a few necessary outbuildings.

Hitched to the straight rail fence that separated, the house yard from the road, were three horses, one of them gray, with saddles on their backs.  I was not more than fifty yards distant from the horses, and could plainly see a holster in front of one of the saddles.

No sound came from the house.  I lay down and watched and listened.  The evening was fast drawing on, and there were clouds in the west, but the sun had not yet gone down, and there would yet be an hour or two of daylight.  I feared that my approach to Lee’s Mill must be put off till the morrow.

A woman came out of the house and drew a bucket of water at the well in the yard.  She then returned into the house, with her pail of water.  Now the sound of men’s voices could be heard, and the stamping of heavy foot within the house; a moment afterward three men came out and approached the horses.