At dawn we left the road and struck the Oneida trail north of the river,
following it swiftly, bearing a little north of east until, towards
noon, we came into the wagon-road which runs over the Mayfield hills and
down through the outlying bush farms of Mayfield and Kingsborough.
Many of the houses were deserted, but not all; here and there smoke
curled from the chimney of some lonely farm; and across the stump
pasture we could see a woman laboring in the sun-scorched fields and a
man, rifle in hand, standing guard on a vantage-point which
overlooked his land.
Fences and gates became more frequent, crossing the rough road every
mile or two, so that we were constantly letting down and replacing
cattle-bars, unpinning rude gates, or climbing over snake fences of
split rails.
Once we came to a cross-roads where the fence had been demolished and a
warning painted on a rough pine board above a wayside watering-trough.
"WARNING!
All farmers and townsfolk are hereby requested and ordered to
remove gates, stiles, cow-bars, and fences, which includes
all obstructions to the public highway, in order that the
cavalry may pass without difficulty. Any person found felling
trees across this road, or otherwise impeding the operations
of cavalry by building brush, stump, rail, or stone fences
across this road, will be arrested and tried before a court
on charge of aiding and giving comfort to the enemy.
G. COVERT,
"Captain Commanding Legion."
Either this order did not apply to the cross-road which we now filed
into, or the owners of adjacent lands paid no heed to it; for presently,
a few rods ahead of us, we saw a snake fence barring the road and a man
with a pack on his back in the act of climbing over it.
He was going in the same direction that we were, and seemed to be a
fur-trader laden with packets of peltry.