Before them appeared a blue streak, that broadened swiftly and became a river.
"We must not let them see us," said Henry.

"Bend as low as you can, and be as quiet as you can!" Paul obeyed, and in a few more minutes they were at the river's edge.
"Fasten your bullets and powder around your neck," said Henry, "and keep the rifle on your shoulder." Paul did so, following Henry's quick example, and the two stepped into the water, which soon reached to their waists.

Henry had been along this river before, and at this crisis in the lives of his comrade and himself he remembered.

Dense woods lined both banks of the stream, which was narrow here for miles, and a year or two before a hurricane had cut down the trees as a reaper mows the wheat.

The surface of the water was covered with fallen trunks and boughs, and for a half mile at least they had become matted together like a great raft, out of which grass and weeds already were growing.