Then the forest shut it out and he rode on through a region almost abandoned by its people owing to the converging armies.

He did not yet look at his map, because he knew that he would soon come into the main road to Jackson.

It would be sufficient to determine his course then.
Dick was not familiar with the farther South, which was a very different region from his own Kentucky.

His home was a region of firm land, hills and clear streams, but here the ground lay low, the soil was soft and the waters dark and sluggish.

But his instincts as a woodsman were fortified by much youthful training, and he felt that he could find the way.
It gave him now great joy to leave the army and ride away through the deep woods.