Although the hour was so unseasonable, a warm supper was at once prepared for the weary travellers. On the following morning Mr. Firth informed Helen that he should leave her in those quarters for four days while he went away on business of the secret service. But instead of four days, three weeks had passed before he returned. Early on the morning following his arrival they were up and prepared to start, provided by their hospitable friends with lunches of cornbread and meat stowed in the pouches of the saddles, as for the future they were to journey on horseback; and Miss Gerard was also furnished with a black skirt of Mrs. Moore's remodelled into a riding-habit. With eyes swimming in tears Helen bade farewell to those who, though strangers, had welcomed her as a friend, and with downcast heads, under the rays of the hot morning sun, the travellers rode away, prepared to penetrate the tangled forests of Mississippi. But first they crossed the clearing memorable as the battle-field of Raymond, fought over when General Grant was making his march on Vicksburg. The traces of the conflict that terminated so sadly for the Confederate States were still everywhere visible, and the trees showed abundant signs of the hailstorm of war which had swept over them. Little thought Helen as she rode over those trampled fields that her fate was mysteriously linked with one who had bravely borne himself in that battle, and whose face she had not yet seen, while here it was that, unknown to her, his destiny first crossed her life. During the daytime the travellers made their way through the forests by compass, ignoring roads and paths and avoiding all traces of civilization. Helen now found it of inestimable service to her that from childhood she had been a thoroughly-accomplished and enthusiastic horsewoman. As they forced their way through the densely-woven brake and underwood, shreds of her riding-habit were left on the logs, trees and under-brush which they were compelled to jump, until actually nothing was left of it but the binding and the pocket; and her under-dress being now too short to protect her ankles, she soon saw her stockings dashed with blood from the rude scratches made by the merciless twigs and thorns. Hunger and thirst at last overtook the travellers, but before they could find a clear brook out of which to drink it was three o'clock in the afternoon. After feeding the horses and resting an hour they journeyed on till midnight, when, wellnigh exhausted, they halted in the gleam of a pale moon under a venerable oak tree on the brow of a hill at whose foot murmured a stream lazily waiting to be their lavatory at daybreak.