The officer commanding it was positive he was right, and in this he was supported by Brigadier Cotton and some of the other officers; I was equally positive that he was wrong, and that if we marched as he proposed, we should find ourselves several miles out of our course.

The Brigadier settled the question by saying I was responsible for the troops going in the right direction, and ordering me to show the way.

The country was perfectly bare, there was not a tree or object of any kind to guide me, and the distance seemed interminable.

I heard opinions freely expressed that I was on the wrong road, and at last, when the Brigadier himself came up to me and said he thought I must have lost the way, I really began to waver in my conviction that I was right.

At that moment my horse stumbled into a ditch, which proved to be the boundary of the main road.