Shortly after noon the negro came out and talked quite a while with us. He wished to know when we would have another meal brought out. We expressed our willingness to receive another meal at any time before sunset. We asked the negro how much provision he could furnish us to carry with us. He replied that he had not a good chance in day-time to get at the meat, flour, and potatoes, without being seen by his master or mistress, and at night he had no chance at all to secure any thing, as the cellar and smoke-house were always locked at dark by the whites, who kept the keys until morning.
The man on whose provision we were subsisting was named Schooler, or Schuyler. Being an original secessionist, he left Knoxville, Tennessee, and settled in Roanoke county, Virginia, where he would be less troubled with Federal troops. The negro had also lived in Knoxville, and had before seen Yankee soldiers. When he left us he went home, and soon returned with another supply of food for our present consumption. While we were eating, the negro informed us that Schooler, his master, had seen the man at whose house we had attempted to get rations on the previous night. The man told Schooler of the demonstrations we had made at his house before leaving it to go on over the mountain. Schooler in turn told the man that he, too, had been interrupted during the night, but the disturbers of his sleep had done no harm, and gone on, he knew not where.
Our supper finished, we had an understanding with the negro as to the place where we should receive the corn and meat. He then left us, and we rolled up our blankets and made other needful preparations for our tenth night's travel. Just at dark we started for the point designated to receive what provisions our negro host could provide for us. As we found him there with the corn and meat, we were not long delayed. We were told it was seven miles to Big Lick, and that Salem Court-House was nine miles west of that place. I gave the negro one of my blouses as a slight compensation for his services to us, and as a token of remembrance. We thanked the negro heartily for befriending us in the hour of need, and then put the corn, which was shelled, in our haversacks, and the meat in our pillow-slip, and started for the road, accompanied that far by the negro.
On reaching the road we bade our negro friend farewell and left him. We found the road better than we expected, and pushed forward rapidly, hoping to get around Big Lick by midnight. We had thought of bearing to our right and passing east of the place. As soon as we thought we had gone six miles we saw a few small houses not far ahead of us, and concluded to pass them before commencing our circuit around the town. When we were just opposite the first house, Wood supposed it to be the domicile of a negro family, and went to the door, opened it, and asked how far it was to Big Lick. "You are there now," was the answer given. Closing the door without asking any more questions, Wood hastily rejoined us at the road.
On finding we were in town we pushed on through it, walking silently and briskly. Near the railroad depot we halted, and after consulting briefly concluded to leave the road, so as to elude pursuers, fearing the man we had inquired of might be a white Rebel, and might collect a party to look after us in the morning. After leaving the road we reached in a few minutes' time the railroad bridge. We passed under the bridge, walking partly in the waters of the little stream which it spanned until we gained the woods north of the railroad. We then traveled due northward until the sky became cloudy, when it grew much darker, and we found great difficulty in making our way through strange woods, with no road to guide us.
Before morning it began raining, and the night became black and dismal in its last hours. We could scarcely proceed, but we kept on the move. Just at daylight we came to a road running east and west. It seemed to be a very public one. As it was raining hard we thought we should not be seen, and we crossed the road and pushed on northward something more than a mile, when we halted in the midst of a considerable forest of pines. Through this forest was a string of rail-fence, and as it was raining hard, so that we could not make our bed down on the ground, we placed rails across from one panel to another, on which we sat with our coats and blankets disposed about us so as to shed the water off as much as possible. In this manner we occupied two corners of the fence; three of us in one corner and two in the other.
Near noon we were compelled by the severity of the storm to seek shelter. We started and kept close to the fence on its north side, going in an easterly direction. In a few minutes we came to another fence, running north through open fields. We changed our course, and followed it until we came to a branch running in a south-east course. As the ground was much lower near the branch we could follow it and at the same time be screened from view. Soon we came in sight of a lone building to our left a short distance, in the edge of the woods. We went directly to it, and found it to be a tobacco-house. In it we found shelter from the rain, as the roof was good. We then took off our coats and blankets, and wrung the water from them. As there was a lot of corn-blades tied in bundles stacked in one corner of the room, we soon had a good resting-place. A small lot of tobacco leaves, hanging above our heads, soon attracted our attention, when the following conversation took place:
"There's some tobacco," said Smith. "I'll bet there will be somebody out here before night to look at it."
"Not while it rains this way," said Trippe.
"Well, let them come," said Wood, "it belongs to nobody but a darkie, any how."