The man thereupon returned with his son to the potato field, and resumed his work; while his more compassionate wife gave him a bowl of bread and milk, which he ate sitting on the threshold of the door, to guard against surprise. While in the house, he saw a musket, powder-horn and bullet-pouch hanging against the wall, of which he determined, if possible, to possess himself, that he might be able to procure food during the long and solitary march before him. On retiring, therefore, he traveled only far enough into the woods for concealment--returning to the woodman's house in the evening, for the purpose of obtaining the musket and ammunition. But he was again beset by imminent peril. Very soon after he entered the house, the sound of approaching voices was heard, and he took to the rude chamber for security, where he lay flat upon the irregular floor, and looking through the interstices, saw eleven soldiers enter, who, it soon appeared, came for milk. His situation was now exceedingly critical. The churlish proprietor might inform against him, or a single movement betray him. But neither circumstance occurred. The unwelcome visitors departed in due time, and the family all retired to bed, excepting the wife, who, as Jacob descended from the chamber, refreshed him with another bowl of bread and milk. The good woman now earnestly entreated her guest to surrender himself, and join the ranks of the King, assuring him that his Majesty must certainly conquer in the end, in which case the rebels would lose all their property, and many of them be hanged into the bargain. But to such a proposition he of course would not listen. Finding all her efforts to convert a Whig into a Tory fruitless, she then told him, that if he would secrete himself two days longer in the woods, she would furnish him with some provisions, for a supply of which her husband was going to the fort the next day, and she would likewise endeavor to provide him with a pair of shoes. Disinclined to linger so long in the country of the enemy, and in the neighborhood of a British post, however, he took his departure forthwith. But such had been the kindness of the good woman, that he had it not in his heart to seize upon her husband's arms, and he left this wild scene of rustic hospitality without supplies, or the means of procuring them. Arriving once more at the water's edge at the lower end of Lake Champlain, he came upon a hut, within which, on cautiously approaching it for reconnaissance, he discovered a party of soldiers all soundly asleep. Their canoe was moored by the shore, into which he sprang, and paddled himself up the lake under the most encouraging prospect of a speedy and comparatively easy voyage to its head, whence his return home would be unattended with either difficulty or danger. But his pleasing anticipations were extinguished on the night following, as he approached the Isle au Noix, where he descried a fortification, and the glitter of bayonets bristling in the air as the moonbeams played upon the burnished arms of the sentinels, who were pacing their tedious rounds. The lake being very narrow at this point, and perceiving that both sides were fortified, he thought the attempt to shoot his canoe through between them rather too hazardous an experiment. His only course, therefore, was to run ashore, and resume his travels on foot. Nor, on landing, was his case in any respect enviable. Without shoes, without food, and without the means of obtaining either--a long journey before him through a deep and trackless wilderness--it may well be imagined that his mind was not cheered by the most agreeable anticipations. But without pausing to indulge unnecessarily his "thick-coming fancies," he commenced his solitary journey, directing his course along the eastern lake shore toward Albany. During the first four days of his progress he subsisted entirely upon the bark of the birch--chewing the twigs as he went On the fourth day, while resting by a brook, he heard a rippling of the water caused by the fish as they were stemming its current. He succeeded in catching a few of these, but having no means of striking a fire, after devouring one of them raw, the others were thrown away.