The streams which we came to gave us considerable trouble.  We were not exactly dry, but then we could have been wetter, and so we hunted for bridges, thereby losing much time and taking grave chances of being caught.  We were new in the matter of escaping, and had a lot to learn.  Now we know we should have waded through without losing a minute.

That morning, just before stopping-time, in crossing a railway Bromley tripped over a signal wire, which rang like a burglar alarm and seemed to set a dozen bells ringing.  We quickened our pace, and when the railway man came rushing out of his house and looked wildly up and down the track, we were so far away he could not see us!

We kept well to the east, for we knew the location of Frankfort and that we must avoid it.  Bromley had difficulty in keeping his direction, and I began to suspect that he thought I was lost, too.  So I told him the direction the road ran, and then made an observation with the compass to convince him, but many a time in the long, black middle of the night, I thought I detected a disposition to doubt in his remarks.

When the North Star shone down on us, we could find our way without trouble, but when the night was clouded, as most of the nights were, it became a difficult matter.

The third night there was a faintly light patch in the sky, by which I guided my course and did not use my compass at all.  Bromley had evidently not noticed this, and declared that no human being could keep his direction on as black a night as this.  The faint light in the sky continued to hold, and I guided our course by it until we came to a road.  Here Bromley insinuated that I had better use my compass (I was thinking the same thing, too).  I assured him it was not necessary, for I knew the road was running east and west.  It was, I knew, if the light patch in the sky had not shifted.

When we made the observation with the compass, we found it was so; and Bromley asked me, wonderingly, how I could do it.  I told him it was a sort of sixth sense that some people had.  After that he trusted me implicitly.  This saved him a lot of anxiety, and also made it easier for me.

Soon after this we got into a miry part of the country, with the woods so thick and the going so bad that we knew we could not make any progress.  It was a veritable dismal swamp, where travellers could be lost forever.

As we stumbled along in this swampy place, we came to a narrow-gauge railway, which we gladly followed until we saw we were coming to a city.  This we afterwards knew to be the city of Hanau.  Just in the gray dawn, we left the track and took refuge in a thick bush, where we spent the day.  This was October 5th.

Our first work was to change our socks, spreading the ones we took off on a tree to dry.  We then carefully rubbed our feet until they were dry, and put on the dry socks.  We soon learned that we must leave our boots off for a while each day, to keep our feet in good condition.  The pressure of the boots, especially with the dampness, made the feet tender and disposed to skin.