"Well, let him sleep," said Warren, finally. "I suppose he's tired out, and very probably Davies will speedily come in."
But midnight came and no Davies. Out on the prairie—now dimly lighted by the rays of the waning moon—the pickets at the east had descried no moving objects. Every now and then the yelp of a coyote on one side of camp would be echoed far over at the other. These, with an occasional paw or snort from the side-lined herd, and the murmuring rush of the river over its gravelly bed, were the only sounds that drifted to the night-watchers from the sleeping bivouac. Towards one o'clock the sergeant of the guard came out to take a peep. Later, about two, Lieutenant Sanders, officer of the guard, a plucky little chap of whom the men were especially fond, made his way around the chain of posts and stayed some time peering with his glass over the dim vista of prairie to the eastward.
"I declare I thought I saw something moving out there," he muttered, after long study. "Are you sure you've seen or heard nothing?" he inquired of the silent sentry.
"Not a thing, lieutenant, beyond coyotes or Indian signals, I can't tell which. They keep at respectful distance, whatever they are."
"Well, even if Mr. Davies's horses were too used up to come, the couriers ought to have got back long ago. Tell them to find me as soon as they come in," said he, and went back to his saddle pillow in the heart of the grove. At its edge a solitary figure was standing gazing out into the night.
"That you, Sanders?" hailed a voice in low tone.
"Yes," answered the lieutenant, shortly, for he recognized Devers and he didn't like him.
"Isn't Davies in yet?"
"No, and it's two o'clock."
"Oh, he'll turn up all right," said the captain, in airy confidence. "It was all absurd sending him out to scout a smoke,—as if we hadn't seen and smelled smoke enough this summer to last a lifetime. He's probably camped down the valley somewhere, and they're all waiting for morning. I'm not worrying about him."