So long had they thus remained as if dazed that there was hardly time to conceal themselves in the underbrush a few feet distant from the trail before the foremost of the horsemen came into view.
The enemy were riding in couples, and from his hiding-place Evan counted ninety pairs of riders before the whole of the troop had passed.
Then it seemed as if fortune was determined to play her most scurvy trick upon these two lads, whose one desire was to save the lives of their friends.
Evan, who had crouched on one knee when he first sank behind the bushes, endeavored to change his position in order to relieve the strain upon his limb, and by so doing slipped on a rotten branch, which broke beneath his weight with a report seemingly as loud as that of a pistol-shot.
Instantly the troopers halted immediately opposite, and before the boys could have taken refuge in flight, two having dismounted, plunged into the underbrush.
All this had been done so quickly that the fugitives literally had no time to flee, and hardly more than thirty seconds elapsed from the breaking of the twig until each lad was held roughly and firmly in the clutch of a soldier.
"What's wrong in there?" an officer from the trail shouted, and one of the captors replied as he dragged his prey out into the open:
"We have found a couple of young rebels, and they look much like the two we left behind us at the plantation."
Word was passed ahead for the entire troop to halt, and an officer whom the boys afterward recognized as a Tory by the name of Dunlap, who held the king's commission as colonel, came riding back.
"Who are you?" he asked as the troopers forced their prisoners in front of them on the trail where they might most readily be seen.