"Who are you?" said I.
"No matter!" said he; "advance and give the countersign."
"I sha'n't advance a step until I know who you are!"
"Well, you advance one," said he, "and I'll advance one."
"Very well; come on!"
As we met, each with revolver cocked, the officer exclaimed, "Why, Bunker! Is that you? I am frightened to think of it! Why didn't you stop? In an instant more my whole company would have fired into you!"
"I was asleep, Captain! It was a narrow escape, wasn't it?"
"Indeed, it was!"
It was no other than Captain Ayres and company A, of the 20th Ohio, sent out as a support for me to fall back on if I was discovered by the enemy and pursued. They had been sent out after I left, and I had no knowledge that they were coming. The result of it was, I came very near falling back without any support!
My suspicions of a rebel force being in Dickens' woods was confirmed in the morning by an attack on our pickets, by a force of five hundred men, by which two men of the 23d Indiana were wounded. After firing into the pickets, the enemy made a detour to the north-west of Bolivar, and there encountered a large Federal foraging party, that fired into them and killed seven, which made them skedaddle.