We then pushed on, and discovered we were about passing a house on the left of the road. We checked our speed and passed the house with care and celerity. When we had got about twenty steps beyond the house, and just as we were becoming careless again, the dogs began a lively barking. We proceeded a dozen steps further when we noticed the sparks of a fire flying upward. The fire was about twenty steps ahead of us, on the left of the road. It was near the corner of the rail-fence, where the lane terminated. We stopped instantly, but said nothing. We watched the fire closely for a moment. The dogs kept up their howling. In the light of the fire, which soon blazed up, we distinctly saw several covered wagons ahead of us near the road side. We knew, or thought at least, that we were about running into a supply train. We hardly knew what to do. The dogs continued barking furiously, and would soon arouse somebody, to see what disturbed them. We could not go forward, as the guards, or teamsters, with the train would discover us. We did not wish to go back by the house, as there was danger of being observed by persons within, or about it. There was no time for deliberation. We climbed the rail-fence to our right on the north of the road. We were careful not to make any noise; although the dogs made hubbub enough to drown any noise we should make. We had left tracks on the road, and found on getting into the field that its surface was moist and impressible. We determined to make a trail that would mislead any person who might have the curiosity to follow us. On reaching a point in the field about a quarter of a mile due north of the road we turned east. In that direction we traveled half a mile. We then turned south and crossed the fence at the corner of the field. On getting into the road we followed it east nearly a quarter of a mile, when we went some distance in a south-east course. By so doing we got into thick woods where the ground was covered with leaves, where we could leave only very indistinct traces behind us. We then turned and traveled directly west, keeping parallel with the road, and a little more than a quarter of a mile south of it. The dogs at the house still kept up their howling; and as the train and those with it were just at hand, we kept off at a safe distance. The shot we had heard an hour before, we judged had been fired by some one with the train.