It was a good thing for us that the night had started so well, for along toward morning, probably two hours before daylight, we crossed a peat-bog.  There was a road at first which helped us, but it ran into a pile of cut peat, drying for the winter.  There were also other roads leading to peat-piles, but these were very misleading, and as the night was of inky blackness, with scarcely any breeze, it became harder and harder to keep our direction.  Consulting the compass so often was depleting our match supply, and I tried to depend on the faint breath of a breeze which sometimes seemed to die away altogether.  This bog, like all the others, had tufts of grass and knolls of varying size coming in the most unexpected places.  Over these we stumbled, and fell, many times, and as we felt fairly safe from being heard, it was some relief to put into language what we thought of the country and all its people, past, present, and future.  I believe we were especially explicit about the future!

It was nearly morning when we got off the bog, and as the rain was falling we took refuge in a tumble-down hut which had probably been a cowherd’s.  We soon saw that it was a poor shelter, and when a woman came along and looked straight at us, we began to get gooseflesh!  She actually smiled at us, and we tried to smile back reassuringly, but I am afraid there was a lack of mirth in our smiles which detracted from their charm.

She walked away—­stopped—­looked back at us—­and smiled again, and went on, nodding her head as if she knew something.  We were rather afraid she did, and hastily decided to push on.  We were afraid of the lady’s patriotism, and determined to be moving.  There was a thick-looking wood just ahead, and to it we went with all speed, taking with us two large gunnysacks which we found in the hut.  They were stamped “Utrecht” and had the name of a dealer there.

All that day we were afraid of the lady who smiled and nodded her head, but perhaps we wronged her in our thoughts, for the day passed without any disturbance.  Probably she, too, like the old man with the dog, knew that silence does not often get one into trouble.

That day we shaved, but, there being no stream near, we had to empty the rain-drops off the leaves into the top of the box which held Ted’s shaving-stick.  It took time, of course, but what was time to us?  We had more time than anything else.

Although we tried to reassure ourselves with the thought that there were probably no soldiers near, and that the civilians were not likely to do any searching, still we were too apprehensive to sleep, and started away at nightfall, with eyes that burned and ached from our long vigil.

The night was cloudy at first, with sprinkling rain, but cleared up about midnight into a clear, cold autumn night.  The cold kept me from getting sleepy, but when I got warm from walking my sleepiness grew overpowering.  Ted was more wakeful than I, and took the lead, while I stumbled along behind, aching in every joint with sleepiness.  The night was clear and starry, and Ted steered our course by the stars.