“I ought to be nearer the Union lines,” he muttered. “If I could only climb some hill and then a tall tree I might--Ha! what’s that?” A peculiar odor, as of cooking meat, had reached his nose. He sniffed it and found the odor coming stronger. Then he heard low negro voices. “Ain’t dat fowl most done, Henry Harrison Dundell?” “It am, Uncle Ike.” “Den let us eat um up, afore some o’ dem sodgers cum fo’ to take it away from us.” “De taters am dun, too, Uncle Ike.” “Dat’s good, boy, dat’s good. Come an’ stow um away now.” A rattle of tin plates and a couple of knives followed. Crawling forward, Louis soon beheld a wretched negro hut, half-tumbled-down, on the edge of a clearing. In front of the hut an aged negro and a darkey boy were enjoying a feast of chicken meat and baked potatoes. Making certain that no others were around, Louis advanced, pistol in hand. At the sight of the young soldier, both colored ones started to run, the uncle with the chicken and the boy with his arms full of smoking hot potatoes, which burnt him and caused him to dance a lively jig. “Stop, both of you!” “Fo’ de lan’ sake, officer, doan you shoot us!” moaned the aged negro. “I won’t uncle; but come back with that chicken. I want a drumstick, and I want a couple of those potatoes; they smell good.” Much relieved in mind, the two colored ones returned and gladly divided their morning meal with Louis. As he ate, the young soldier questioned the aged darkey, as to the camp of the Army of the Potomac. “Da is right ober yander, sah,” was the reply, and the colored man pointed with his long, bony hand. “But, bless you, sah, General Lee an’ General Jackson am all aroun’ yeah wid thousands an’ thousands ob troops ready fo’ to swallow yo’ up, moah de pity!” “They won’t swallow us up so easily,” smiled Louis. He sat with his back to the fire, drying himself. In an hour he was ready to go on, and the aged colored man gave him minute directions as to the best trail to follow. Morning had now come, and once again the sun shone hotly. Not a cannon boomed in the distance, for the battle of Gaines’s Mill did not really open in earnest until some time after noon. With the pistol of the Confederate captain stuck in his belt, Louis trudged on and on. At noon he stopped, wondering where he was. He had taken a wrong turn and now found himself in a thicket. He tried to take a cross cut, and became hopelessly lost, and thus the best part of the day slipped by. He was lost in the swamps of the Chickahominy! Only the old veterans who went through our great war can realize the full meaning of those words. “Lost in the swamps” was the fate of many a straggling soldier who never turned up to tell his story of starvation. With such a jungle about him that he could not see twenty feet ahead, and with mud and water up to his ankles, Louis stopped short, and a chill shot through him.