Who goes there?

by B. K. Benson

"No, sir; not a thing."

"You understand why we advance in this manner?"

"Yes; I can watch for you, and you can watch for me, and both can watch for both."

"Yes, and not only that. We can hardly both be caught at the same time; one of us might be left to tell the tale."

I went on by. The road here ran through woods, but shortly a field was seen in front, with a house at the left of the road, and I changed tactics. When Jones had reached me, we rode together through the field, went on quickly past the house, and on to another thicket, in the edge of which we found a school-house; but just before reaching the thicket I made Jones follow me at the distance of some forty yards. I had made this change of procedure because I had been able to see that there was nobody in the stretch of road passing the house, and I thought it better for two at once to be exposed to possible view from the house for a minute than one each for a minute.

We had not seen a soul.

We again proceeded according to our first programme, I riding forward for fifty yards or so, and Jones passing me, and alternately thus until we saw, just beyond us, a road coming into ours from the southwest. On the north of our road, and about two hundred and fifty yards from the spot where we had halted, was a farmhouse, which I supposed was the Linney house marked on the map. The road at the left, I knew from the map, went straight to Mechanicsville and thence to Richmond, and I suspected that it was frequently patrolled by the rebel cavalry. We remained in hiding at a short distance from the house, and consulted. I feared to pass openly on the road--two roads, in fact--opposite the house, for discovery and pursuit at this time would mean the abortion of the whole enterprise. Every family in this section could reasonably be supposed to have furnished men to the Confederate army near by and, if we should be seen by any person whomsoever, there was great probability that our presence would be at once divulged to the nearest rebels. The result of our consultation was our turning back. We rode down toward Old Church until we came to a forest stretching north of the road, which we now left, and made through the woods a circuit of the Linney house, and reached the Hanover road again in the low grounds of Totopotomoy Creek. We had seen no one. The creek bottom was covered with forest and dense undergrowth. We crossed the creek some distance below the road, and kept in the woods for a mile without having to venture into the open.

It was about nine o'clock; we had made something like three miles since we had left Old Church.

In order to get beyond the next crossroad, it was evident that we must run some risk of being seen from four directions at once, or else we must flank the crossing.

By diverging to the right, we found woods to conceal us all the way until we were in sight of the crossroad. I dismounted, and bidding Jones remain, crept forward until I could see both ways, up and down, on the road. There were houses at my left--some two hundred yards off, and but indistinctly seen through the trees--on both sides of the road, but no person was visible. Just at my right the road sank between two elevations. I went to the hollow and found that from this position the houses could not be seen. I went back to Jones, and together we led our horses across the road through the hollow. We mounted and rode rapidly away through the woods, and reached the Hanover road at a point two miles or more beyond the Linney house.