Soon the noise grew fainter, and they passed on to try the woods we had just come through, and we, worn with fatigue, fell asleep.
In the afternoon they gave our woods another combing. They seemed pretty sure we were somewhere near! But they did not come quite so close to us as they had in the morning.
However, we had heard enough to convince us that this was a poor place to linger, and when it got real dark, we pushed on south across the hay meadow. This meadow was full of ditches which were a little too wide to jump and were too skwudgy in the bottom to make wading pleasant. They delayed us and tired us a great deal, for it was a tough climb getting out of them.
At last we decided to take the road, for the night was dark enough to hide us, and by going slowly we thought we could avoid running into any one.
We had not gone very far when we heard the sound of wagons, and when we stopped to listen we could hear many voices, and knew our road was bringing us to a much-used thoroughfare. In the corner formed by the intersecting roads there was a thick bush of probably ten acres, and I could not resist the desire to scout and see what sort of country we were in. So I left Bromley, carefully marking where he was by all the ways I could, and then went out to the edge of the bush. I went along the edge of the road, keeping well into the bush. It was too dark to see much, but I could make out that there was a well-wooded country ahead of us. I came back to the exact place where I had left Bromley, or at least where I thought I had left him, but not a trace of him could I see. Of course, I dared not call, so I gave a soft whistle, as near like a bird-call as I could. Bromley reached out his hand and touched me! He was right beside me. That gave me the comfort of knowing how well the darkness and bushes hide one if he is perfectly still.
We thought this road led to the river Main, and decided to keep close to it so we could get across on the bridge. We followed along the road until it branched into two roads. We took the right branch first, but as it turned more and more sharply to the west, we concluded it was the road to Frankfort, and retraced our steps to the place where we had picked it up, and went the other way. There was heavy forest along the road, and it seemed to us to run southeast by east. We wanted to go south, so we turned off this road through a chance hay meadow, and then through the forest, until we found a sort of road which ran south.
All German forests have roads, more or less distinct, traversing them according to some definite plan, but they do not necessarily follow the cardinal points of the compass. We followed the south road, which was little used, until we came to a stream. There was no way of getting across it, so we followed its bank until it flowed into the Kinzig River. We knew by our map this must be the Kinzig River.
We tried to find a path along the Kinzig, but there did not seem to be any, and the underbrush was impenetrable. We decided to wait until morning came, took some chocolate and biscuits and filled our beer-bottle in the stream. Then we found a comfortable bank, and put some brush under our heads and slept. But not very soundly, for we did not want to miss that misty light which comes about an hour before sunrise.
We wakened just as the light began to show in the east, and, stiff and cold, with our teeth chattering, we started on our way to find some means of getting across the Kinzig. Bridge, boat, or raft, anything would do us, provided only it came soon, before the daylight.
In a few minutes we came to a foot-bridge, with a well-beaten path running down to it and up the opposite bank. So we made a dash across it. We knew enough, though, to get off the path at once, for we could see it was a well-travelled one. We struck into the wood, keeping our southerly direction, but soon came out on another road, and as the light was too strong now for us, we went back into the woods and kept hidden.