“Good, old boy,” he said, “you’ve brought me safely so far.  I knew that I could trust you.”

Then he stood quite still, with his hand stroking the horse’s nose to keep him silent.  He had heard the first sounds of search.  To his right was the distant beat of hoofs and men’s voices.  Evidently they were going to make a thorough search for him, and he decided to resume his flight, even at the risk of being heard.

He led the horse again, because the forest was so dense that one could scarcely ride in it, and he thought, for a while, that he had thrown off the pursuit, but the voices came again, and now on his left.  They had never relaxed the hunt for an instant.  They had a good leader, and Harry admitted that in his place he would have done the same.

The country grew rougher, being so steep and hilly that it was not easy of cultivation, and hence remained clothed in dense forest and undergrowth.  Twice more Harry heard the sound of pursuing voices and hoofs, and then the noise of running water came to his ears.  Twenty yards farther and he came to a creek flowing between high banks, on which the forest grew so densely that the sun was scarcely able to reach the water below.

The creek at first seemed to be a bar to his advance, but thinking it over he led his horse carefully down into the stream, mounted him and rode with the current, which was not more than a foot deep.  Fortunately the creek had a soft bottom and there was no ringing of hoofs on stones.

He went slowly, lest the water splash too much, and kept a wary watch on the banks above, which were growing higher.  He did not know where the creek led, but it offered both a road and concealment, and it seemed that Providence had put it there for his especial help.

He rode in the bed of the stream fully an hour, and then emerged from the hills into a level and comparatively bare country.  It was a region utterly unknown to him, but with his splendid idea of direction and the sun to guide him he knew his straight course to Lee.  The country before him seemed to be given up wholly to grass, as he noticed neither corn nor wheat.  He saw several farm hands, but decided to keep away from them.  That was no country for the practice of horsemanship by a lone Confederate soldier, nor did he like to be the fox in a fox hunt.

Yet the fox he was.  He chose a narrow road leading between cedars, and when he had advanced upon it a few hundred yards he heard the sound of a trumpet behind him, and at the edge of the woods that he had left.  He saw horsemen in blue emerging and he had no doubt that they were the same men whom he had eluded in the thickets.

“Their pursuit of me is getting to be a habit,” he said to himself with the most intense annoyance.  “It’s a good thing, my brave horse, that you’ve had a long rest.”

He shook up the reins and began to gallop.  He heard a faint shout in the distance and saw the troopers in pursuit.  But he did not fear them now.  Numerous fences would prevent them from flanking him, and he saw that the road led on, straight and level.  He shook the reins again and the horse lengthened his stride.