[CHAPTER V.]
THE NIGHT ALARM.
All day they rode across the open plains, presenting still the same invariable aspect of rich prairie land, for the most part nearly level, but now very rich and fertile, and becoming more and more so, with every mile our party traversed.
At noon, they halted for three hours under the shelter of a clump of magnificent oaks over-canopying a little pool, the well-head of as clear a streamlet as ever was the haunt of Grecian woodnymph. The sylvan meal was spread with all the simple luxury of a frontiers-man's fare.
After the meal was over, the Partisan said:
"Now try to sleep for an hour or so, while I go and take a round on the prairie. I see a flock of buzzards yonder, whose motives I don't exactly understand, and I would have a nearer look at them."
And with the word, he took up his rifle, tried it with the ramrod to see that the ball had not fallen out, from the speed at which he had ridden, as the gun hung muzzle downward at his back; renewed the copper caps, loosened his wood-knife in its sheath, and walked off unaccompanied toward the spot in the plain above which a flight of the black vultures, commonly known as Turkey Buzzards, were hovering and swooping, at a distance so great that they looked no larger than flies, and that no ordinary eye could have distinguished what they were.
As he moved away slowly, Julia's eyes followed his departing figure, and her face wore a very thoughtful expression, as she turned round to her husband.
"There goes an extraordinary man," she said, with an expression of deep feeling. "A very singular, and very noble character. I never have seen and very seldom read of anything like him."