"I don't see any of the enemy in sight, men," declared Prescott. "You will deploy into line of skirmishers and then we'll run across the field. Be prepared for the order to lie down in case the enemy develops."
A moment later, and the men, in one straight, thin line, with considerable intervals between them, charged silently across the field.
At the edge of the timber they halted again. Lieutenant Prescott, revolver in hand, moved forward, accompanied only by Corporal Cotter.
After some minutes the pair came back again.
"You'll go forward as skirmishers," said Prescott. "Keep your intervals. Forward!"
No further word was spoken, but the lieutenant, at the right of the line and slightly in advance, moved so stealthily that those nearest him felt that the enemy could not be far off.
Suddenly the stick that the lieutenant carried in place of a sword was held aloft, then the point lowered. The advancing line halted.
"When you move forward again," went the low, almost whispered and repeated order down the line, "crouch low and do not hurry. A hundred yards ahead is a position from which we can rake the rascals with a flanking fire. Forward!"
Very soon the advancing soldiers caught sight of the planter's house between the trees. It stood some seven hundred yards from this nearer edge of the clearing.
Now the soldiers, crouching as they moved, until they appeared to be bent nearly double, came in sight of a trench. It spread away obliquely before them, but everything in the trench was visible to them. At a rough estimate there were some seventy-five brown-skinned Moros crouching in the trench behind a line of hard-packed dirt thrown up before them.