She had all her wits about her instantly;
and under a pretence of repeating what she had already told the first men,
she gave them such a mixture of descriptions that the negro was called up
to unravel it. She made out that they were trying to reach the big river
by a certain road, and marched in the night as well as in the day.
She admitted that she had never been on that road but once.
And when she was taken along with them a mile or two to the place
where they went into bivouac until the moon should rise,
she soon gave such an impression of her denseness and ignorance that,
after a little more questioning, she was told that she might go home
if she could find her way, and was sent by the commander out of the camp.
She was no sooner out of hearing of her captors than she began to run
with all her speed. Her chief thought was of Darby. Deserter as he was,
and dead to her, he was a man, and could advise her, help her.
She tore through the woods the nearest way, unheeding the branches
which caught and tore her clothes; the stream, even where she struck it,
was out of its banks; but she did not heed it -- she waded through,
it reaching about to her waist, and struck out again at the top of her speed.
It must have been a little before midnight when she emerged from the pines
in front of the Stanley cabin.
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