“They’ll be searching the beach soon,” said Obed, “and we’d best be off.  It’s against my inclination just now to stay long in one place.  A rolling stone keeps slick and well polished, and that’s what I’m after.”

“I think our safest course is to travel inland just as fast and as far as we can,” said Ned.

“Correct.  Good advice needs no bush.”

They started in the darkness across the sand dunes, and walked for a long time.  They knew that a careful search along the beach would be made for them, but the Mexicans were likely to feel sure when they found nothing that they had been wrecked and drowned.

“I hope they’ll think the sea got us,” said Ned, “because then they won’t be searching about the country for us.”

“We weren’t destined to be drowned that time,” said Obed with great satisfaction.  “It just couldn’t happen after our running such a gauntlet before reaching the sea.  But the further we get away from salt water the safer we are.”

“It was my plan at first,” said Ned, “to go by way of the sea from Vera Cruz to a Texan port.”

“Circumstances alter journeys.  It can’t be done now.  We’ve got to cut across country.  It’s something like a thousand miles to Texas, but I think that you and I together, Ned, can make it.”

Ned agreed.  Certainly they had no chance now to slip through by the way of Vera Cruz, and the sea was not his element anyhow.

The rain ceased, and a few stars came out.  They passed from the sand dunes into a region of marshes.  Constant walking kept their blood warm, and their clothes were drying upon them.  But they were growing very tired and they felt that they must rest and sleep even at the risk of recapture.

“There’s a lot of grass growing on the dry ground lying between the marshes,” said Ned, “and I suppose that the Mexicans cut it for the Vera Cruz market.  Maybe we can find something like a haystack or a windrow.  Dry grass makes a good bed.”

They hunted over an hour and persistence was rewarded by a small heap of dry grass in a little opening surrounded by thorn bushes.  They spread one covering of it on the ground, covered themselves to the mouth with another layer, and then went sound asleep, the old, unloaded musket lying by Obed White’s side.

The two slept the sleep of deep exhaustion, the complete relaxation of both body and mind.  Boy and man they had passed through ordeals that few can endure, but, healthy and strong, they suffered merely from weariness and not from shattered nerves.  So they slept peacefully and their breathing was long and deep.  They were warm as they lay with the grass above and below them like two blankets.  It had not rained much here, and the grass had dried before their coming, so they were free from danger of cold.