“No, but they are there, and they saw you,” said Cale, who was greatly excited. “Now, what’s to be done? I wish that cavalry would come along now, and we would have those sentinels took in out of the wet. I hope they did not see you.”
“Nor me. I wouldn’t dare go back home again. Let’s sit down here a spell.”
“I—I believe I would rather go a little further away,” said Cale. “Suppose some officer should come along the road?”
Dan answered this question by seating himself on the nearest log and resting his chin on his hands. He wasn’t going any further, and Cale, rather than be left alone in the woods, took a place by his side. They stayed there for a quarter of an hour without saying a word, except Cale, who wished they had a gun, so that they could tumble the officer over when he came along to see where they went, and then they heard another challenge to halt from the sentinel on the bridge.
“There, now, I’ll bet there is somebody else coming,” said Cale, his excitement and fear increasing tenfold.
“Well, he didn’t come by here,” said Dan, who sat where he could see everybody who passed along the road.
“No, but he came from Ellisville. Who knows but there was someone there watching our house, and who saw us when we came away?”
“That’s so,” said Dan, but he didn’t seem to be much worried by it.
“Well, now, I say let’s go a little further back.”
But Dan kept his seat with his eyes fixed upon the road, and while his brother was trying to make up his mind whether or not he ought to leave him they heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs on the bridge, and even Dan began to prick his ears. It was a small party of horsemen who were coming directly along the road of which he kept watch. They were walking their horses, and that made the spies eager to escape observation. Dan stretched himself out at full length in the bushes, his example being promptly followed by Cale, and in a few minutes the horsemen rode by; but they saw nothing to excite their suspicions, and in a few seconds more they passed out of hearing.