Leaving Ned in safe hiding, I crept forward to reconnoiter. I made for a rock overhanging the water, at the head of a bend in the river, from the edge of which I hoped to be able to tell if the fires opposite were repeated down the side I was on. As I gained a sheltered place near the top and in the rear of the rock, I heard a boat grate on the pebbles beneath, and two men ascended to the very spot I had started for. I lay low behind the scanty bushes, while they sat down near me. From what they said, I gathered that they had crossed from the Rebel camp over the river to investigate the bank up stream for some purpose, but not liking the looks of something that had attracted their notice, they had stopped there to decide what they should do. I was too near to move away without them hearing me. I was caught in a trap. Chaffing at a delay, when every moment was precious, and fearing that Ned, alarmed at my protracted absence, might come to look for me, I was obliged to crouch, motionless in my hiding place, while the two men so near me idly discussed topics relating to everything but the duty they were on. While I waited, the clouds began to break away, and once or twice the moonlight shone out full and strong, leaving me with little to shield me, had they chanced to turn around. Finally, after what seemed hours to me, one decided to go over for re-enforcements and descended to the boat. Cautiously rising, as the other advanced to the extreme edge of the rock, I saw that his back was toward me and that he was intently watching the progress of the boat, then in mid-stream. It was possible then for me to have slipped away unnoticed, but I was exasperated beyond endurance. An uncontrollable impulse seized me. Even if I had been sure that the whole Confederate army would have started to his rescue, I could not have helped pushing that man into the water. Moving noiselessly behind him, with the end of my revolver I gave him a sharp punch in the middle of the back. Taken completely off his guard, without a word, but with a wild whirl of arms and legs, he went straight down into the deep water beneath. I have wondered hundreds of times since, what that man thought was the matter with him. If he has lived to read this, he knows now. CHAPTER XIV. I returned to where Ned was, and we began retracing our steps. Although we made frequent attempts to get news, it was not until nearly morning that I learned that our troops had advanced to a point, nearer the place where I had made my way into the enemy's camp, and, consequently, nearer where I was then, but to my left. We immediately changed our route.