An owl perched in a tree, high above the marsh, began to hoot dismally, and Shif'less Sol uttered a growl.
"I wish we had the big, dry woods o' Kentucky to go through," he whispered to Henry.

"I ain't much o' a mud-crawler." "But as we haven't got those big, dry woods," Henry whispered back, "we'll have to crawl, creep, or walk through the mud." It was about two miles across the neck, and as they went very slowly for fear of making noise, it took them a full hour to reach the other side, or to come near enough to see what might be there.

Then they found that Henry's belief, or rather intuition, was right.
They could see quite well from the dense covert.

All the Spanish boats were tied up at the shore and two or three fires had been built for the purposes of cooking.

The soldiers in their picturesque costumes lounged about.