Harry, although he did not move, was watching and listening with intense concentration, but his ears now would be his surest signals.  He could not see deep in the thickets, but he could hear any movement in the underbrush a hundred yards away.  So far there was nothing but the hopping of a rabbit.  The bird over his head sang on.  There was no wind among the branches, not even the flutter of leaves to distract his attention from anything that might come on the ground.

He rejoiced in this period of rest, of the nerves, rather than purely physical.  He had been keyed so high that now he relaxed entirely, and soon lay perfectly flat, but with the shotgun still clasped in his arms.  He had a soft couch.  Under him were the dead leaves of last year, and over him was the pleasant gloom of thick foliage, already turning brown.  The bird sang on.  His clear and beautiful note came from a point directly over his head, but Harry could not see his tiny body among the leaves.  He became, for a little while, more interested in trying to see him than in hearing his pursuers.

It was annoying that such a volume of sound should come from a body that could be hidden by a leaf.  If a man could shout in proportion to his own size he might be heard eight to ten miles away.  It was an interesting speculation and he pursued it.  While he was pursuing it his mind relaxed more and more and traveled farther and farther away from his flight and hiding.  Then his heavy eyelids pulled down, and, while his pursuers yet searched the thickets for him, he slept.

But his other self, which men had thought of as far back as Socrates, kept guard.  When he had slept an hour a tiny voice in his ear, no louder than the ticking of a watch, told him to awake, that danger was near.  He obeyed the call, sleep was lifted from him and he opened his eyes.  But with inherited caution he did not move.  He still lay flat in his covert, trusting to his ears, and did not make a leaf move about him.

His ears told him that leaves were rustling not very far away, not more than a hundred feet.  His power of hearing was great, and the forest seemed to make it uncommonly sensitive and delicate.

He knew that the rustling of the leaves was made by a man walking.  By and by he heard his footfalls, and he knew that he wore heavy boots, or his feet would not have crushed down in such a decisive manner.  He was looking for something, too, because the footfalls did not go straight on, but veered about.

Harry was well aware that it was a Union soldier, and that he was the object of his search.  He was a clumsy man, not used to forests, because Harry heard him stumble twice, when his feet caught on vines.  Nor was any comrade near, or he would have called to him for the sake of companionship.  Harry judged that he was originally a mill hand, and he did not feel the least alarm about him, laughing a little at his clumsiness and awkwardness, as he trod heavily among the bushes, tripped again on the vines, and came so near falling that he could hear the rifle rattle when it struck a tree.  He did not have the slightest fear of the man, and at last, raising his head, he took a look.