However, we were there, and within another hour must be screened from view after some fashion, therefore it was useless to grumble, or say this or that movement was impossible; but rather I should do the best I might, and trust to the chapter of accidents that I did not lead my companion into what would prove to be a trap. All the thicket looked dense in the night, but when I was finally come to a clump of bushes through which it was difficult to force my way, I stopped and whispered to Sergeant Corney. "This seems to be such a place as you would have; but who can say whether it will answer our purpose?" "So much the worse for us if it does not," the old man replied, grimly. "Make your way in, an' if there be no tree to give us a roostin'-place, we must take our chances on the ground, for the day is comin' on apace." And indeed he said no more than the truth; already was it possible for me to see surrounding objects, dimly, to be sure, but more clearly than when we first began searching for a place of refuge. Unless we were concealed from view within half an hour, we might as well march straight to the nearest sentinel and give ourselves up as prisoners. There was much to be desired in this thicket which we had chosen by chance, as was learned when we were well within it. Several large trees grew amid the clump of bushes, to be sure; but the foliage was not so dense that one who passed near at hand with reasonable alertness would have failed to discover us lurking there. "It is better than the open country," Sergeant Corney said, when I would have found fault with our blind choice. "We will burrow amid these small bushes until daylight, an' then, if necessary, go to roost." I had in my pocket a small piece of corn bread, and, when I would have divided it with the old man, he showed me about the same quantity, which he had saved in event of just such an emergency, and we munched the dry food with no very keen appetites, but eating at this the first opportunity, in order to keep up our strength for the struggle which must ensue before we gained speech with those in the fort. My sorrow because Jacob had left us on a venture from which I did not believe he could ever return, was so great that I felt no desire for food, but ate it from a sense of duty, even as I had turned my back on my comrade when he needed aid. One does not make haste with such a meal, and when I had swallowed the last dry crumbs, which were like to have choked me, the day had fully come. It can readily be imagined that we crept even nearer the edge of the thicket than was really safe in order to get some idea of our position, and to my great surprise and delight I found that we had come in as direct a course as if we had followed a blazed trail.