The stars were beginning to grow pale in the heavens, and a faint greyish tint was creeping gradually upward from the Eastern horizon, and usurping the dark azure of the cloudless sky, when the light sleep of the Partisan was interrupted by the long, tremulous, low, whining of his favourite horse.
He started to his feet in an instant, and listening eagerly, and again laying his ear to the ground, as on the previous evening, speedily became aware that a large body of horse was passing along the hard prairie, not far from the skirts of the timber. Instantly awakening the young lieutenant, and his dragoons, he bade them strike tent, load the mules, and saddle the chargers with the possible speed and silence, keeping their arms ready, for that danger was at hand.
This done, he took up his trusty rifle, and stole away with a noiseless step to reconnoiter the party, which had now come so near that the clank of the steel scabbards against the stirrup irons was distinctly audible above the hollow sound of the horses' tramps.
The noise, however, gradually died away, the troopers having evidently ridden down the outer edge of the forest to the Southward, without noticing the track left by the horses of our company.
Within ten minutes, Pierre returned with a very serious countenance.
"There are above a hundred of them," he said; "regular lancers of Carrera's band. They have gone Southward for the present; but we may expect them back within an hour, for they are evidently on the look-out for our trail, which they must have followed from the last bottom, and lost at night on the dry prairie; had the morning been one hour advanced, they must have seen it, and we should have been all killed before this time; for they make no prisoners."
"There is no time to lose, then," said Gordon, hastily, looking with an anxious eye to the face of his wife, who was already equipped and ready to mount. "Let us get to horse at once, and put the river between them and us."
"That is soon done, so far as we men are concerned," replied the Partisan; "but how do you get her across rivers such as this?"
"We have an India-rubber pontoon here," he answered, pointing to a sort of oval bag of that material, depending from two air cylinders of the same stuff, which, when inflated, and distended by two or three short staves, form a rude boat.
"Let her get in, in God's name!" replied the Partisan, "for all this takes time, and we have little enough of that to spare."