"
"Don't you think we had better halt till daylight?"
"I think we can keep on, sir. The nearer we get there the better; and
if we should miss the path we can halt then and wait till daybreak."
"Well, we can do that," Ralph agreed.
"I will go on ahead, sir, twenty or thirty yards at a time and then
speak, and you can bring the men on to me, then I will go on again. It
will be slow work, but I can keep the path better if I go at my own
pace."
Ralph agreed, and they proceeded in this manner for some time.
"I don't think we are on the track now," Ralph said at last.
"Oh, yes, we are," the officer replied confidently.
Ralph stooped and felt the ground. "The grass is very short," he
observed, "but it is grass."
The officer followed his example.
"Oh, it is only a track now," he said. "Just a footpath, and the grass
is not worn off. I am convinced we are right."
"Well," Ralph said, "just go a little way to the right and left, and
see if the grass gets longer. It seems to me all the same."
The officer did so, and was obliged to own that he could not perceive
any difference. Ralph now spread his men out in a line and directed
them to feel on the ground to see if they could discover the track.
They failed to do so, and Ralph then ordered them together again.
"We will halt here, sergeant, till daylight.
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