Puzzled but not convinced, and thinking that as McCook's command was new to the country, it would be better to send some one who was used to scouting in the mountains, I ordered a lieutenant named Bontecou, of the Second Kentucky Regiment, to take a small party and examine the case anew.

Bontecou had done a good deal of successful work in this line, and was regarded as a good woodsman and an enterprising scout.
He too came back at nightfall, saying that there could be no mistake about it.

He had crept close to the sentinels of the camp, had counted the tents, and being challenged by the guard, had made a run for it through the thicket, losing his hat.

The position of the enemy was, by all the reports, about three miles from us, diagonally in rear of our right flank.

It now seemed that it must be true that some detachment had been delayed in joining the retreating column, and had found itself thus partly cut off by our advance.