They camped that night in the open plain. There was a good moonlight, but the watch was doubled, the most experienced frontiersmen being posted as sentinels. Yet the watchers saw nothing. They continuously made wide circles about the camp, but the footprint of neither man nor horse was to be seen. The day dawned, cold and gray with lowering skies, and, before the obscure sun was an hour above the plain, the train resumed its march, Woodfall, Middleton, Breakstone, Phil, and Arenberg riding in a little group at the head.
"How far on do you say is this river?" asked Woodfall.
"We should strike it about noon," replied Breakstone, repeating his statement of the day before. "It is narrow and deep, and everywhere that I have seen it the banks are high, but we ought to find somewhere a slope for a crossing."
"Is it wooded?" asked Middleton.
"Yes, there are cottonwoods, scrub oaks, bushes, and tall grass along either bank."
"I'm sorry for that," said Woodfall.
Phil knew perfectly well what they meant, but he kept, silent, although his heart began to throb. The other three also fell silent, and under the gray, lowering sky the spirits of the train seemed to sink. The men ceased to joke with one another, and no songs were sung. Phil heard only the tread of the horses and the creak of the wagons.
An hour or two later they saw a dim black line cutting across the plain.
"The trees along the banks of the river," said Bill Breakstone.
"And they are still two or three miles away," said Woodfall.