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Brooks' division, which now took the lead, had advanced as far as Salem Church, on the Chancellorsville pike, when, instead of meeting any portion of Hooker's army, a few shells from rebel guns warned the division of the presence of the enemy. A dense thicket was in front, and Bartlett's brigade, which had the advance, was deployed to skirmish and ascertain the position of the concealed foe.
I was with the right wing, and led my company through the thicket wherever a penetrable place could be found, taking advantage of any clear spot that would carry me towards the enemy. At last I got pretty close up without knowing it. The balls commenced to whistle very thick overhead, cutting the limbs of the chaparral right and left.
There was no doubt now that these were deer that had been often hunted, and that had learned their cunning from long experience. I followed them rapidly till they began feeding in a little valley, then with much caution, stealing from tree to thicket, giving scant attention to the trail, but searching the woods ahead; for the last "sign" showed that I was now but a few minutes behind the deer.
"We'll get the young foxes right away and start off with them. The sooner we get them out of here, the better it will be for all of us." Mr. and Mrs. Brushtail trotted off toward the thicket in which they had their den. Doctor Rabbit was still a little scared, but he believed he would follow at a distance and see for himself whether Mr. and Mrs. Brushtail actually did move the little foxes.
She again crossed the Nullah, and just as we had got our elephant to go well in, the lioness ran back, and crouched under a thicket on our left, where she had been originally started. All this happened in less than a minute. Fraser then called to us to come round the bush, as the lioness being on a line with us, we prevented him from firing.
"About eleven o'clock I sighted him. I was peeping cautiously out of a thicket, at whose edge I had just arrived, into a large park-like glade, and saw him under a big white-oak-tree, eating the acorns.
He dropped his long ears and stood readily to be saddled and bridled. But he was exceedingly sensitive, and quivered at every touch and sound. Venters led him to the thicket, and, bending the close saplings to let him squeeze through, at length reached the open. Sharp survey in each direction assured him of the usual lonely nature of the canyon, then he was in the saddle, riding south.
Down the hill he plunged, regardless of the steep descent, and soon entered the thicket where the storm had fallen upon them, and where so many acts of witchcraft were performed. Now, neither accident nor obstacle occurred to check the headlong pace of the animal, though the stones rattled after him as he struck them with his flying hoof.
This, too, struck, and stuck. But it did not go deep enough to produce any serious effect. The animal roared again, stared about him as if he thought the place was bewitched, and plunged headlong into the nearest thicket, tearing out both arrows as he went through the close-set stems.
She fixed his status relentlessly as something to be remembered when they should meet again. At last, with a little puckering of the brows and a firm contraction of the lips, she dismissed the Kentuckian from her thoughts. Betty complied with Tom's expressed wish, for she did not again visit Thicket Point, but then she had not intended doing so.
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