Tim looked across the ravine through a curtain of rain. Their prospects couldn’t seem worse. They had eaten the last two eggs and roasted and divided the last ear of corn. The rokeeg wouldn’t last long. They couldn’t hope to find friends until they had crossed the state line, and even then they couldn’t tell a Unionist by the cut of his clothes. North Carolina might not be the promised land. They would have to travel a hundred and thirty or forty miles, crossing the Great Smokies before they would see a Yankee uniform. Tim slept until noon and when he woke the rain had stopped and the leaden clouds were blowing away, leaving patches of clear blue sky. Tim touched Red’s shoulder, and Red opened his eyes. He stared at the poncho above his head. His face showed no emotion. He was silent for a minute before he spoke. “Well, we bargained for this. We knew we had no more than a fifty-fifty chance.” “Let’s push on.” They walked north northwest for an hour or so on a narrow, overgrown road. They saw a house, then cut to the right and into a thicket where they stumbled and kicked through the thorny undergrowth and hopped over winding freshets that had come with the rain. When they broke clear at last their hands were bleeding and their clothes were torn, but they had left the house a mile behind. Tim saw a little stream that hadn’t been muddied by the rain. They stood for a moment and looked around. There was no sign of life as far as Tim could see. “Let’s take a bath,” he said. “Are you out of your mind, lad? It’s chilly as the devil this afternoon.” “I’d like a change.” “Why don’t we go into town and have ourselves fitted for new uniforms? Why do the job halfway?” Tim smiled. “At least we can wash our feet and change to dry socks.” They took out clean socks and left their haversacks at the foot of a tree. At the edge of the stream they sat on a huge flat rock and washed their feet, then sat still for a while until their feet were dry. They put on the clean socks, tied the wet ones to the flaps of their haversacks and started walking again. They soon found a rutted wagon road that looked as if it were seldom used. They were fit for travel again, but the open land and the lack of cover along the sides of the road made Tim wonder if they should go on in the light of day. Here they walked side by side. For the first time the ground grew stiff with frost. A railroad whistle broke the silence. In three or four minutes they heard the engine, faintly at first. The whistle sounded again, and they saw a freight train on high ground half a mile west, chugging and rocking toward the north, leaving a trail of smoke behind. “That’s the way to travel,” Red said. They watched the smoke until it disappeared, and when they turned there was a herd of cows ahead of them, lumbering across the road. Tim was about to look for cover when he noticed a boy of six or seven in the middle of the herd. He stared at the fugitives, openmouthed.