"I shall keep every sense on the alert, sir."
Noll was given command of the camp. Captain Foster, now thoroughly fagged, turned in for a few hours' sleep, after leaving orders to be called at eleven o'clock.
"You will find me prowling about your lines from midnight on, Mr. Overton," was the captain's last word before turning in. "It is now nearly dark, so I suggest that you march your men without any unnecessary delay."
Two minutes later Lieutenant Hal was marching his command from camp. He did not take his column through the village. Instead, he marched it to the eastward, then over to the river bank.
Posting his fifty sentries about three hundred feet apart the Army boy thus covered a stretch of water-front some three miles in length, the village's strip of river front being nearly at the middle of this line. Corporal Smith's patrol was at the westerly end of the line. Hal himself headed the patrol at that end. The sentries were instructed to conceal themselves, in order to catch, if possible, any band of rebel smugglers in the act of loading war munitions on a craft.
"Nothing will come of it to-night," muttered Hal to himself, after he had placed his men. "The Mexicans here know that there are troops on the spot. If they were going to ship guns to-night they'd be sure to do it at some point ten or twenty miles from here. This is a job for a whole brigade of infantry. A regiment of cavalry could do more than three regiments of infantry on this work."
But Hal knew that the only two troops of cavalry so far ordered to frontier patrol were two troops at least a hundred miles to the westward. As yet Uncle Sam's soldiers were posted only at particular points known to harbor resolute Mexican rebels.
"The fish can get through the net without the least trouble," thought the young officer.
It was still, dark and quiet out here on the river front. There were no lights, and seemingly none astir except the soldiers.
"Corporal, you stay with the patrol. I'm going to do a little exploring on my own account," said Lieutenant Hal, after another hour had passed.