"By Heaven! I believe he is in love with you, Julia," replied Frank Gordon, half laughing, half in earnest. "I have thought so all the morning."
"Silly, silly, Frank!" she answered, slapping his hand playfully. "Do you know that they say jealous husbands make false wives? and that you should not imagine that I could like any man but you."
About an hour elapsed before the Partisan returned, bearing on his shoulders the saddle of a fat buck, which he had shot during his reconnaisance, wrapped in his own hide, and in his right hand, together with his rifle, a long Comanche arrow reddened with dry gore.
He found the whole party sleeping so soundly that he walked into the very midst of them without disturbing one of the number.
For many hours, not a sound was heard in the neighbourhood of the little encampment. The moon rose and soared above it in her silver beauty, and bathed everything for miles and miles around in soft lustre—the stars rose and set—and the first grey ray of morning was just beginning to pale the eastern horizon, when a deep, continuous, hollow sound, like the roar of the distant surf, aroused every one in an instant.
"Indians! it is Indians!" exclaimed Gordon. "Stand to the horses, lads. Strike the tent like lightning. If one of the beasts neigh or stir, we are lost."
Three of the dragoons, who had risen to their feet on the first alarm, obeyed his orders in an instant, as regarded the horses; Gordon himself struck the tent, and in deep silence, speechless and almost breathless, they awaited the result.
Nearer and nearer drew the din. Gordon was right; it was the fast falling tramp of unshodden horse hoofs. Five minutes, or less, after the first alarm, the mounted horde swept by the mouth of the gorge, so near that the travellers could see their shaven and plumed scalps, their easy martial seats on their wild horses, and their long lances in relief against the sky. But the darkness which brooded over the little basin protected them, and almost as soon as it was there, the danger had passed over.
But as it ended, and the men had time to look around them, it was perceived at once that one of their number—Pierre, the Partisan—was missing, and that the sergeant, although that din might have aroused the dead, still lay asleep on the greensward.
Asleep, indeed! in that sleep which knows no waking. Three deep knife-wounds in his bosom, his throat cut from ear to ear, the cords severed which had bound him to the prisoner—these sufficed to tell the tale.