The advantage of winter travel was the longer nights, and although it had been raining frequently, and the coldest, most disagreeable rains, the weather was dry during the time we were out.  But the going was heavy and bad, and when the time came to rest, we were completely done out.

We had put ourselves on short rations because we had not been able to save much; we had no way of carrying it except in our pockets, and we had to be careful not to make them bulge.  We had biscuits, chocolate, and cheese, but not being able to get even a raw turnip to supplement our stores, we had to save them all we could.

On January 25th, our third day out, the bush was so short we had to lie all day to remain hidden.  We could not once stand up and stretch, and the day was interminably long.  A bird’s nest, deserted now, of course, and broken, hung in a stunted Scotch fir over my head, and as I lay looking at it I thought of the hard struggle birds have, too, to get along, and of how they have to be on the watch for enemies.

Life is a queer puzzle when a person has time to figure it out.  We make things hard for each other.  Here we were, Ted and I, lying all day inactive, not because we wanted to, but because we had to, to save our lives.  Lying in a patch of scrub, stiff, cold, and hungry, when we might have been clearing it out and making of it a farm which would raise crops and help to feed the people!  Hunger sharpens a man’s mind and gives him a view of things that will never come when the stomach is full; and as we lay there under scrub, afraid even to speak to each other, afraid to move, for a crackling twig might attract some dog who would bark and give the alarm, I took a short course in sociology....  The Catholics are right about having the people come fasting to mass, for that is the time to get spiritual truths over to them!

Hunger would solve all the capital and labor troubles in the world; that is, if the employers could be starved for a week—­well, not a whole week—­just about as long as we had—­say, two biscuits a day for three days, with nothing better ahead.  But hunger is just a word of two syllables to most people.  They know it by sight, they can say it and write it, but they do not know it.

At these times the thought of liberty became a passion with us.  Still, we never minimized the danger nor allowed ourselves to become too optimistic.  We knew what was ahead of us if we were caught:  the cells and the Strafe-Barrack, with incidentals.

On the fourth day we crossed an open patch of country, lightly wooded, and then came to a wide moor which offered us no protection whatever.  Our only consolation was that nobody would be likely to visit such a place.  There was not even a rabbit or a bird, and the silence was like the silence of death.

I knew from my map that we had to cross the river Ems, and I also knew that this would probably be the deciding factor in our escape.  If we got over the Ems, we should get the rest of the way.