"Because I had no right to do it," answered Bob. "If I should go to searching houses, I might get myself into trouble with the colonel. Another thing, boys: I shouldn't care to enter that man's castle to look for anything unless I was a civil officer and armed with a search-warrant. He is a hard one, unless his looks belie him."
"I thought so myself," said Loring. "But you are not going back without Bryant, are you? What do you suppose he is doing there, anyway?"
"Of course I shall not go back without him," answered Bob quietly. "He has probably hired out to that squatter, and we must watch our chance and catch him out of doors before we can arrest him."
"Well, are you going to Brazos City?"
"Not by a long shot. Bristow and the fellows who are still with him have not gone that way. As soon as we get behind that belt of post-oaks you see in advance of us, I intend to circle around and go back toward the river again."
Although the troopers rode at a rapid gait, it took them nearly three hours to carry out this programme. At the end of that time they struck the old stage-road, which, in the days gone by, had served as a highway between Brownsville and some of the remote frontier-towns; but when the raiders forced the settlements back into the interior the stage-route was abandoned, and all that now remained to tell of the business that had once been done on it were the half-ruined stations which were scattered along the road at intervals of fifteen or twenty miles.
These stations were built of stone, and were large enough to accommodate a dozen horses and half as many stable-men and drivers, besides the necessary food for both men and animals. Each station was provided with a "dug-out," a miniature fort, into which the employees of the route could retreat in case they were attacked by hostile Indians or Mexican raiders. It was simply a cellar of sufficient size to shelter nine or ten men at close quarters, covered with logs and dirt, and furnished with loopholes on all sides at the height of a foot or more above the ground. It looked like a mound of earth supported on logs about two feet high. The only way of getting into one of these little fortifications was through an underground passage-way which led from the stables. With these arrangements for their defence a few well-armed and determined men could hold their own against all the raiders that could get around them.
About four o'clock in the afternoon Bob and his troopers came within sight of one of these stations, and as soon as their eyes rested upon it they drew up their horses with a jerk, at the same time uttering exclamations of astonishment and delight. Standing in front of the open door were several men dressed in the uniform of the regular army. They seemed to be holding a consultation, and so deeply engrossed were they with their deliberations that they did not notice the approach of the troopers, although the latter had stopped their horses on the summit of a high ridge in plain view of them.
"I wonder if those are our men?" said Carey, with some excitement in his tones.
"We shall soon know," was Bob's calm reply. "Whoever they are, they will have to give an account of themselves, for I am instructed to arrest everybody I meet wearing a uniform."