Joe Burnap proposed that they should have supper and opened the bag which he had filled with such eatables as he could hastily procure on leaving home. They ate a hearty meal, and then resumed their walk for another hour.
“I reckon we’d better stop here,” said Joe. “The Gap’s only half a mile from here, and it’s too arly in the night to go through thar yet. Thar’s too many soldiers goin’ that way.”
“What time will you go through?” asked Tom.
“Not afore midnight.”
“Then I’ll turn in and take a nap. I didn’t sleep any last night.”
“I’m agreed,” replied Joe, who seemed to be indifferent to every thing while he could keep out of the rebel army.
Tom coiled up his body in the softest place he could find, and went to sleep. Exhausted by fatigue and the want of rest, he did not wake for many hours. He came to his senses with a start, and jumped upon his feet. For a moment, he could not think where he was; but then came the recollection that he was in the country of his enemies—a wanderer and a fugitive.
He looked about him in search of his travelling companion; but the fact that he could not see him in the night was no argument that he was not near him. He supposed Joe had chosen a place to sleep in the vicinity, and thinking he might not wake in season to pass through the Gap before daylight, he commenced a search for him. He beat about the place for half an hour, calling his companion by name; but he could not see him, and no sound responded to the call but the echoes of his own voice.
The independent Virginia farmer had anticipated Tom’s intention to part company with him, and, by this time, perhaps, had passed through the Gap. The soldier boy was not quite ready to dispense with the services of his guide, inasmuch as he did not even know where the Gap was, or in what direction he must travel to reach it. While he was debating his prospects, an enterprising rooster, in the distance, sounded his morning call. This assured him that he must be near some travelled road, and, taking the direction from the fowl, he resumed his journey.
A short walk brought him out of the woods, and, in the gray light of the dawn, he discovered a house. As he did not care to make any new acquaintances, he avoided the house, and continued his travels till he arrived at a road. As it was too early in the morning for people to be stirring, he ventured to follow the highway, and soon perceived an opening in the mountains, which he doubted not was the Gap.