As the first faint streaks which marked the rising of the sun shot across the sky, Hitch left the road and walked toward the river.
He entered some deep woods and crawled into a thicket of small trees which were heavily draped with muscadine vines. Dragging these vines down and packing them around him so that they made a complete covering, he lay flat on the ground and slept like a dead man until darkness came again.
When Hitch awoke he could see the dim outlines of the river levee, and he started toward it, every muscle stiff and aching and crying for more rest.
“I’s gwine git over on my own side of dis river befo’ I fergits whut side I b’longs on,” he soliloquized. “Bad luck is hittin’ me too fast fer me to take any chances!”
Weak from hunger and weariness, with his strength bound by his stiff and aching muscles, the current carried Hitch almost a mile down the stream before he could battle his way across.
When he landed he lay for an hour upon the shore, hardly able to move. At last he started, going away from the river until he found the public road, then turned to the right and started forward on a steady trot.
Daylight found him twenty-seven miles nearer Tickfall, and the third day had begun for him without food. Hunger gnawed at his stomach with the teeth of death.
As he approached the woods where he expected to hide for the day, he noticed a thin column of smoke rising above the branches of the trees.
“Ef I kin find dat fire in de woods, an’ some nigger is watchin’ it, I won’t hab no trouble,” Hitch muttered. “Dey’ll onderstan’ dat I’s done had troubles an’ dey’ll git me some pants an’ somepin to eat.”
He crept into the timber and began to walk slowly and cautiously toward the place where he thought he had located the smoke.