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.