For ten days they travelled through the forest, increasing their distance daily, as Charlie regained his strength.  The last day or two they did not make less than twenty miles a day.  Their faces were turned steadily east.  Occasionally they passed large tracts of cleared land, villages, and cultivated fields.  At some of these they stopped and replenished their stock of flour, which they took without paying for it, but did no farther damage.

Of meat they had abundance.  Two or three men started each day as soon as they halted, and, in a short time, returned with a goat or young pig.

“We are now close to the Bug River,” Ladislas said at their last halting place.  “Tomorrow we shall meet some, at least, of our comrades.  I do not expect a great many, for we were pretty equally divided as to the direction we should travel in.  Practically, we were safe from pursuit when we had gone fifteen miles, for the forest there spreads out greatly, and those in search of us would know that further pursuit would be useless.  Many of my men did not care about going farther, but all this part of the country has been so harried, for the last two or three years, that we thought it best to try altogether new ground.  When we have crossed the Bug we shall be beyond the forest, but there are great swamps and morasses, and hills with patches of wood.  Many streams take their rise there, all meeting farther on, and forming the Dnieper.  We must keep north of that river, for to the south the country is thinly populated, and we should have difficulty in maintaining ourselves.”

Charlie made no comment, but he was glad to hear that the band intended to keep to the north of the Dnieper, for that river would have formed a serious obstacle to his making his way to rejoin the Swedes.  The next day, they reached the bank of the Bug, and, following the river down, came after an hour’s walking upon a great fire, round which fifteen men were stretched.  These, as the captain’s party approached, rose to their feet with a shout of welcome.

“That is better than I expected,” Ladislas said, as they came up to them.  “Five and twenty is quite enough for work here.  In the forests one can do with more, but, moving steadily on, as we mean to do, till we get pretty near the eastern frontier, five and twenty is ample.  It is enough, when together, to surprise a village; and it is not too many, travelling in twos and threes, to attract attention.  Things always go on better, too, after a dispersal.  Many who are discontented, or who want to command a band of their own, break off, and one starts fresh, with just the men one likes best to keep.”

“We had begun to give you up, captain,” one of the men said, as he joined the other party.  “We have been here six days.”

“We travelled but slowly, at first, and it is only the last two days we have really made fair journeys; but there was no reason for any great haste.  The world is all our own, and, at any rate, as long as we were in the forest, there was no fear of wanting food.