"They're after us, lieutenant!" shouted Bader.
"Many?" He slacked speed, and we listened attentively.
"Only one," cried Miller. "He's coming fast."
The pursuer gained so rapidly that we looked to our pistols again. Then Absalom Gray cried:
"It's only a horse!"
In a few moments the great gray of fallen Corporal Crowfoot overtook us, went ahead, and slacked speed by the lieutenant.
"Good! He'll be fresh when the rest go down!" shouted Miller. "Let the last man mount the gray!"
By this time we had begun to think ourselves clear of the enemy, and doomed to race on till the horses should fall.
Suddenly the hoofs of Crowfoot's gray and the lieutenant's bay thundered upon a plank road whose hollow noise, when we all reached it, should have been heard far. It took us through wide orchard lands into a low-lying mist by the banks of a great marsh, till we passed through that fog, strode heavily up a slope, and saw the shimmer of roofs under the moon. Straight, through the main street we pounded along.