The Hidden Children by Robert William Chambers Chapter 4 Page 9

— and even in my secret heart believing him to be so — yet I could not close eyes and ears to what so stealthily was passing in the midnight woods around me. And truly it was duty, nor any motive baser, that set me after him that starlit night, when, as before, being on guard, he left the fire about midnight: and I out of my blanket and after him in a trice.

The day was the 7th of July, a Wednesday, I remember, as I had writ it in my journal, my habit being to set down every evening, or as near the date as convenient, a few words which briefly recorded the day’s events.

The night before we had camped in the woods along the Catskill road leading toward Cobus-kill; this night, being fine and warm, we made open camp along a stream, within a few miles’ journey of the