At dark, our host, leaving us in a thicket, five hundred yards from his house, went forward to reconnoiter. Finding the coast clear, he beckoned us on to supper and ample potations of apple-brandy.
Wandering from the Road.
With difficulty we induced one of his neighbors to guide us. Though unfamiliar with the road, he was an excellent walker, swiftly leading us over the rough ground, which tortured our sensitive feet, and up and down sharp, rocky hills.
At two in the morning we flanked Wilkesboro, the capital of Wilkes County. To a chorus of barking dogs, we crept softly around it, within a few hundred yards of the houses. The air was full of snow, and when we reached the hills again, the biting wind was hard to breathe.
We walked about a mile through the dense woods, when Captain Wolfe, who had been all the time declaring that the North Star was on the wrong side of us, convinced our pilot that he had mistaken the road, and we retraced our steps to the right thoroughfare.
We stopped to warm for half an hour at a negro-cabin, where the blacks told us all they knew about the routes and the Rebels. Before morning we were greatly broken down, and our guide was again in doubt concerning the roads. So we entered a deep ravine in the pine-woods, built a great fire, and waited for daylight.
XIII. Friday, December 30.
Crossing the Yadkin River.
After dawn, we pressed forward, reluctantly compelled to pass near two or three houses.
We reached the Yadkin River just as a young, blooming woman, with a face like a ripe apple, came gliding across the stream. With a long pole, she guided the great log canoe, which contained herself, a pail of butter, and a side-saddle, indicating that she had started for the Wilkesboro market. Assisting her to the shore, we asked: