daylight at last appeared we sought a ravine and a dense thicket and
stowed ourselves away.

It cleared off with the rising sun, and we spent the day in hiding,
drying our clothes in the sun as best we could. We had no idea where we
were, and could only locate directions in a general way; so we talked
over the situation and decided to travel by night, going as near north
as possible, and to take turns as leader or guide, holding each leader
responsible for keeping our course.

When night came it was decided that it was my lead, and I prepared to
guide the party north in a country of which I knew nothing, my only
support being the consciousness that I knew as much about our
surroundings as the others.

We started, and proceeded in a very satisfactory manner until we struck
what we took for a bayou. There was a path along the bank, so we turned
and followed it for quite a distance, expecting it to lead us to a
crossing, but finally concluded that we should wade the stream. I picked
out a good place and started in. We walked until tired, sometimes up to
our knees in water and again up to our waists, but there seemed to be no
other side, and by the time we concluded that we had a swamp to deal
with instead of a bayou we knew just about as well how to find the spot
we had left as how to reach the other side. After a standing committee
of the whole had discussed--and cussed--the situation, in water up to
our waists, we decided that it was better to go on than to try retracing
our steps, as we would be bound to reach the other side or some side if
we only kept on long enough. So I picked out a northerly direction as
well as I could and we floundered on.

The silence was not oppressive, as the croaking of innumerable frogs,
the buzzing of several million mosquitoes and the splash of the water
did not permit such a thing to exist, while exclamations, some partially
suppressed and some emphatic, frequently silenced the frogs and startled
the mosquitoes, as one or another of the party stepped into a hole or
stumbled over a root. At last we struck a place where the water was
quite deep, the bottom soft and the bullrushes so thick that we could
scarcely wade through them.

When we got where the bullrushes waved over our heads, while the mud was
nearly to our knees and the water up to our armpits, the rest of the
party stopped and mildly remonstrated, one of them suggesting that my
ability as guide was not being displayed in f