Some time in the evening we awoke and got up, finding the sky clear, and the weather mild for the time of year. We found we had not stopped convenient to water, but on looking around a little we found water not far off sufficient for our needs. As we had no use for fire we built none, but made a meal on parched corn and beef, and quietly awaited the approach of night. The evening was spent in conversation, dwelling chiefly on our trip, past and prospective. We talked of things that had taken place, which, if we had them to do over again, we should do differently; of some fork of the road or cross-road, where, if we were only there again, we would take a different course. Sometimes we would imagine certain things to happen us, and decide in our minds what we should do, should the event actually transpire. Our minds seemed always occupied, either with thoughts and reflections on the journey, so far as completed, or with plans and expedients for the journey yet before us.
At dark our luggage was fitted up in readiness for starting out on the twelfth night of our travels, being the thirteenth night out. In a half hour's time we were on the road, wending our way northward. We found the road had improved under the day's sunshine, and we were enabled to make better progress than we had made on the previous night. On coming to a cross-road near midnight we stopped a few minutes to eat a little and consult as to the course to take, north or west. It was evident that, no matter which course we took, we should soon reach the first ranges of the Alleghany Mountains. As we had previously determined to travel in day-time across the ridges, gorges, valleys, and barren wastes of those mountains, we thought we would turn west and reverse, as soon as possible, the order of our times of sleep and travel, sleeping at night and traveling in day-time. We accordingly turned our faces to the west. By so doing we did not reach the mountains as soon as we should have done had we continued in the northward course.
We spent another night and day, March 3, 1864, in the valley between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains. Nothing deserving of particular notice transpired during that day. An hour or more before day, on the early morning of March 4th, we came to a considerable stream, washing the base of one of the principal ridges of the Alleghanies. We had been traveling the greater part of the night over a very rough and hilly road, and were getting tired and sleepy. As we expected to begin traveling in day-time over the mountains on the day then approaching, in accordance with our previous programme, we determined not to cross the stream that night, or morning rather, and followed the road back a short distance to where the woods bordered it on the south. We then left the road and entered the woods, going in a south-east course a little more than a half mile. In a spot surrounded by small trees and bushes, where the surface of the ground was covered with rock large and small, we halted for the day, March 4th. We cleared the rocks from a small space, sufficiently large for our bed. We then made it and went to rest for a few hours.
CHAPTER IV.
AWAKENED—WATCHING IN AMBUSH—AVERILL'S CAVALRY—WOMAN MAKING SUGAR—WE SEE MEN DRESSED IN BLUE—DECEIVING THE WOMAN—CHANGE OF BASE—MISLEADING PURSUERS—WE EAT LAST OF OUR SUPPLIES—START OUT IN DAY-TIME IN ACCORDANCE WITH AGREEMENT—OUR DISCOVERY—OUR PURSUIT—OUR FLIGHT—TRIPPE FAILS—HE FALLS BY THE WAY—REBELS THREATEN—OUR SPEED OUR SAFETY—TRIPPE'S PROBABLE FATE.
Near nine o'clock, A. M., March 4th, we were awakened by the rumbling noise of a wagon running over a rough and stony road not far to the east of us. We supposed this road intersected the one we had been traveling during the night, but we had not noticed the point of intersection. On finding we were near a road upon which persons would be passing during the day Smith cautiously ventured in the direction of the road to a cluster of cedar bushes, from which, while concealed from observation, he could see any one passing. Soon another wagon was heard coming down the road. Smith watched in the bushes until the wagon passed, when he returned to us, reporting that the wagon was a common army wagon, and that the driver had on a blue overcoat. "Can it be," said Smith, "that Averill's cavalry are on a raid through here?" As we knew the Confederates wore blue coats whenever they got possession of them we did not comfort ourselves with the hope that Union troopers were in the vicinity. We rather concluded there was a squad of Confederate military in the neighborhood, and thought best to look about us a little.
Smith, having been out east of us and taken a survey of the road and adjacent woods, thought he would take a look to the south and south-west of us. Keeping under cover of the brush as much as possible, he went out south of us, intending to be gone only a few minutes. Fully a half hour passed and Smith had not returned, and, finally, we suspected something wrong, and quietly, though quickly, folded our blankets and got ready for a "skedaddle." We did not, however, intend changing our location before Smith returned, or until it was certain he would not return at all, unless somebody else came upon us in our present retreat. We had but a few minutes to wait before we saw Smith approach from the south in a brisk, though cautious walk.
"What does this mean?" asked Smith, on noticing we had torn up camp, and were looking as though we were about ready to fly.
"It means that we had given you up as lost or captured," answered Trippe.