Hale left the camp on Harlem Heights the same evening, accompanied by Sergeant Stephen Hempstead, a trustworthy member of his company, whom he engaged to go with him as far as it would be prudent. He was also accompanied by his trusty servant, Ansel Wright. They found no safe place to cross the Sound until they arrived at Norwalk, fifty miles from New York, owing to the presence of small British cruisers in those waters. There Hale exchanged his regimentals for a citizen's dress of brown cloth and a broad-brimmed round hat, and directed Hempstead and Wright to tarry for him at Norwalk until his return, which he supposed would be on the 20th. He directed a boat to be sent for him on the morning of that day, and left with Hempstead his uniform and his military commission and other papers. There are somewhat conflicting accounts concerning Hale's movements after he left Norwalk. All agree that he was conveyed across the Sound to Huntington Bay, where he landed; that he assumed the character of a schoolmaster and loyalist disgusted with the "rebel" cause, and that he professed to be in quest of an engagement as a school-teacher. It is known that he entered the British camps in personal disguise and with the pretext of loyalty and the character of a pedagogue; that he was received with great cordiality as a "good fellow"; that he visited all the British camps on Long Island, made observations openly, and drawings and memoranda of fortifications, etc., secretly; that he passed over from Brooklyn to New York city and gathered much information concerning affairs there, the British having invaded Manhattan Island and secured possession of the town since his departure;[3] and that he returned to Long Island and passed through the various camps to Huntington Bay for the purpose of going back to Norwalk. Tradition tells us that Hale was conveyed from Norwalk to Huntington Bay on a sloop, and was landed from her yawl two hours before daybreak in the neighborhood of a place called "The Cedars." Near there a Widow Chichester, a stanch loyalist (called "Widow Chich"), kept a tavern, which was the resort of all the Tories in that region. Hale passed this dangerous place with safety before cock-crowing, and at a farm-house a mile distant he was kindly furnished with breakfast and a bed for repose after his night's toil. Then he made his way to the nearest British camp, and was received without suspicion of his real character. Concerning his movements after that, until his return from New York, tradition is silent.