This day was a showery one, too, but the sun shone for about an hour in the morning, and when Bromley lay down to sleep, I decided to go out and see what sort of country we were in.  I wanted to check up my map, too, for if it were correct, we should be near the Main River.

I made my way cautiously to the edge of the wood, marking the way by breaking the top of a twig here and there, to guide me safely back to Bromley.  Ordinary travellers can call to each other, but the ways of escaping prisoners must all be ways of quietness, although their paths are not all paths of peace!

I saw a beautiful little lodge, vine-covered, with a rustic fence around it, with blue smoke curling out of its red-brick chimney, and I just knew they were having bacon and eggs and coffee for breakfast.

Two graceful deer, with gentle eyes, looked out at me from a tangle of willows, and then I knew the brown lodge was the game-keeper’s house.  A hay meadow, green with after-grass, stretched ahead of me, but there was no sign of the Main River.

I had kept well under cover, I thought, but before long I had the uncomfortable feeling that some one was following me; the crackling of the bushes, which ceased when I stopped, and began again when I went on, seemed very suspicious.  I abruptly changed my course, making a wide circle, and was able to elude my pursuer and find my way back to Bromley.

I had an uneasy feeling that I had been too careless, and that some one had seen me.  However, I lay down to sleep, for I was dead tired, and we had a splendid hiding-place in the thick bush.

I do not know how long I slept; it seemed only a few minutes when a bugle-call rang out.  We wakened with a start, for it went through us like a knife.

We heard loud commands, and knew there was a company of soldiers somewhere near, and I gathered from my recent observations that these sounds came from the hay meadow in front of us.

We did not connect the demonstration with our presence until the soldiers began shouting and charging the wood where we lay.  Then we knew we were what the society papers call the “raison d’etre” for all this celebration.

We lay close to the earth and hardly dared to breathe.  The soldiers ran shouting and firing (probably blank cartridges) in every direction.  Through the brush I saw their feet as they passed—­not ten feet from where we lay.

The noise they made was deafening; evidently they thought if they beat the bushes sufficiently hard, they could scare us out like rabbits, and I knew they were watching the paths and thin places in the woods.  But we lay tight, knowing it was our only safety.

Soon the noise grew fainter, and they passed on to try the woods we had just come through, and we, worn with fatigue, fell asleep.

In the afternoon they gave our woods another combing.  They seemed pretty sure we were somewhere near!  But they did not come quite so close to us as they had in the morning.