He waited and looked for several minutes, but it did not reappear. At the moment it vanished, he fancied he heard a slight sound, but it was too indefinite to identify.
Had the young man but known that the light which he had seen was burning on the roof of his own home, and that it was Dinah who extinguished it so abruptly, he would have shaped his course far differently.
CHAPTER X.
A SURPRISE.
Avon Burnet waited several minutes after the light went out, in the hope that it would reappear and give him an indication of its nature and cause; but darkness continued, and he concluded that his first suspicion was right: some warrior in riding over the prairie had halted to light his cigar or pipe, and then ridden on to join his comrades near the cabin.
The youth was in the situation of the mariner who finds himself adrift in mid-ocean, without compass or rudder. Neither the sky nor the ground gave him any help, and in order to reach the camp of his friends he must, under Heaven, rely upon his own skill.
“There’s one thing certain,” he concluded, “I shall never get there without making a 78 break. I have secured a pretty good horse, and I may as well turn him to account.”
Heading in the direction which seemed right, he tapped the ribs of the mustang with his heels, and he broke at once into a sweeping gallop, which, if rightly directed, was sure to carry him to his destination in a brief while.