eaving the highway.
To this we now returned, and proceeded Northward to where the road
crosses the Neperan River, near the Philipse manor-house. Instead of
crossing this stream, we turned to the right, to follow its left bank
some way upward, and then ascended the hill East of it, on which the
rebel post was established. Our course, soon after leaving the road,
lay through woods, the margin of the little river affording us only
sufficient clear space for proceeding in single file. De Lancey rode
at the head, then went two of his men, then Tom Faringfield and
myself, the troop stringing out behind us, the lieutenant being at the
rear.

'Twas slow and toilsome riding; and only the devil's own luck, or some
marvellous instinct of our horses, spared us many a stumble over
roots, stones, twigs, and underbrush. What faint light the night
retained for well-accustomed eyes, had its source in the
cloud-curtained moon, and that being South of us, we were hidden in
the shadow of the woods. But 'tis a thousand wonders the noise of our
passage was not sooner heard, though De Lancey's stern command for
silence left no sound possible from us except that of our horses and
equipments. I fancy 'twas the loud murmur of the stream that shielded
us. But at last, as we approached the turning of the water, where we
were to dismount, surround the rebels hutted upon the hill before us,
creep silently upon them, and attack from all sides at a signal, there
was a voice drawled out of the darkness ahead of us the challenge:

"Who goes thar?"

We heard the click of the sentinel's musket-lock; whereupon Captain De
Lancey, in hope of gaining the time to seize him ere he could give the
alarm, replied, "Friends," and kept riding on.

"You're a liar, Jim De Lancey!" cried back the sentinel, and fired his
piece, and then (as our ears told us) fled through the woods, up the
hill, toward his comrades.

There was now nothing for us but to abandon all thought of surrounding
the enemy, or even, we told ourselves, of taking time to dismount and
bestow our horses; unless we were willing to lose the advantage of a
surprise at least partial, as we were not. We could but charge on
horseback up the hill, after the fleeing sentinel, in hope of coming
upon the rebels but half-prepared. Or rather, as we then felt, so we
chose to think, foolish as the opinion was. Indeed what could have
been more foolish, less military, more like a tale of fabulous knights
in so