While the two clever cavalrymen were probably skirmishing around on their horses along the road, or through the fields to their front, looking after me, I was rapidly traveling in a course directly opposite, and they would not be likely to suspect that I had crossed the road.
There were no woods on the side of the fence or road on which I had placed myself, and I was obliged to keep close to the fence, and followed right alongside of the road for quite a long way.
At the bottom of the hill was a dry run; that is, there was a gravelly bed over which a small stream should have coursed, but the water was not there in August, 1861. The banks were, however, pretty well shaded or covered with a light undergrowth of willows, or some such trees as usually are seen in these situations. It was a good chance for me to get away from the road fence, so I ran along the run-bed toward the south, under the protection of the shady undergrowth. There were no signs of life along this stream; it was deserted both by the water and the things that live in and above the water.
Its course led me a long way from the road. After successfully passing a house, which was near the top of the hill, at a safe distance, unobserved, I got into a second wood and lay down on the ground for a much-needed rest.
I did not dare to stop long in any one place, knowing only too well that, when my guard should report that he had lost his prisoner, the Rebel cavalry about headquarters would be sent out to search for me, with probable orders to all guarded points to keep an especial lookout for a person of my description. I could not stay in the wood, though I could best conceal myself there, because I knew that I would famish. I was already in real distress for want of a drink of water, and, as I lay there in the wood, my brain began to conjure up all sorts of torments. I imagined that the dry bed of the stream over which I had been stumbling was mocking me with an appearance of moisture.
If any who chance to read this have ever had a couple of hours violent exercise in a dusty country, on a hot August day, and longed for a drink of water, they may appreciate my misery. I don't imagine that I can convey in words any conception of the suffering, the intense suffering one may experience for a drop of water, when they can't get it. The experience will almost drive one wild. I believe this, because, on more than one occasion, I have seen the demon of this anguish look into my eyes with the wild glare of the frenzied maniac.
The drizzling rain of the morning had given way to a sultry, close noon, and as I lay panting in the shade of the wood, the sun hung out like a huge, blazing copper ball, and poured down his fiercest heat. I thought of the beautiful, clear, cold spring on the hill-side back of my father's house, in Pennsylvania, where I had so often, when a boy, been sent for a bucket of water, and had so reluctantly obeyed, thinking it a great hardship to be compelled to throw out a whole bucket of good water just because it wasn't fresh and cold. I would have given anything in the world for just one chance to be a better boy at home, and solemnly pledged myself never to kick again on my turn at going for water.
I called up involuntarily all the soda fountains I had ever seen in the cities, and became frenzied over the idea that I began to hear in my mind the buzzing noise of the little sprays of water that were always to be heard dashing against the glass case. Unable to stand it any longer, I got up and made a break for water, determined that I must find it at any risk.
In this condition of mind I trotted along slowly, like a hunted wolf, with his tongue hanging out. Let's see. I've compared myself to a monkey riding on the rear end of a horse; a deer stalking behind the fence; a fox with zigzag tracks being chased by a dog; a hog under a fence; and now it's a chased wolf. I hope to exhaust Noah's Ark before I complete the story, and am trying to keep the score in view.
I found a pool of water on the outer edge of the wood. There had been a spring about there some place at some time. If there had been any hogs about they would have found it first and utilized it as a bath; as it was, it was partly covered with a greenish slime. I had spent some time in Texas, where it only rains once in seven years, and had learned, while traveling about that country, that the green scum is considered an indication of good water. That's a fact. A Texan will always prefer to take a drink from a pool on which there is this scum. So, in my distress, for the want of a drink—of anything, so it was water or something wet—I eagerly skimmed a place large enough to poke my nose and mouth into, and sucked into my parched throat a long drink of the warm stuff.