Cautiously he raised his head and saw, to his joy, that only a few yards now separated him from his coveted depression. His heart began to beat thick and fast. Ned knew well that the road which he must cross was commanded from above by the insurgent guns. If the dip were not as deep as he calculated—if it would not keep him hidden—he would be shot down like a dog.
“Now for it,” he whispered to himself, lying flat once more and wriggling forward, as before.
Suddenly he stopped dead and listened intently. He had heard a sound in the brush behind him.
As he listened the sound came again, sharp and crackling. Somebody was evidently approaching him and using the utmost caution in doing so. After the first sharp crackling of the broken stems, he heard no more.
Ned reached back and drew his revolver. Then, crouching on his knees behind a close-growing bush, he waited the coming of his trailer.
CHAPTER XXIV.
NED’S HEROIC DEED.
Hardly daring to draw a breath, and with his heart pounding against his ribs as if it would break them, Ned waited. It was overpoweringly hot in the brush. The sweat dribbled from his forehead and rolled down his nose, itching it in maddening fashion, but he did not dare to move a hand to mop his brow. A moment of inattention, he felt, might cost him his life.
Suddenly the crackling was repeated, this time close at hand. Ned could not repress a start, and as his frame twitched nervously the brush directly in front of him parted. To his astonishment, something red was thrust through. In the sudden relief to his feelings, Ned almost burst into a roar of laughter, for the rubicund object quickly revealed itself as Herc’s scarlet thatch. The former farm boy raised a red, dripping face, and gazed inquiringly about him, his countenance framed oddly in the dusty brush.