"Go at once, Henrietta," whispered Shepard, urgently. "It's important that you shouldn't be held here, that you be left with a free hand."
"It's so," she said.
He stooped and kissed her on the brow, and, without another word, she vanished among the cedars on the lower slope. Dick thought he heard a moment later the distant beat of hoofs and he felt sure she was riding fast and far. Then he turned his attention to the danger confronting them, because a danger it certainly was, and that, too, of the most formidable kind. But, first, he gave the map to Shepard to carry.
Sergeant Whitley came down the slope and joined them.
"I think we'd better lie down, all of us," he said.
Now the real leadership passed to the sergeant, scout, trailer and skilled Indian fighter. It passed to him, because all of them knew that the conditions made him most fit for the place. They knelt or lay but held their weapons ready. The sergeant knelt by Dick's side and the youth saw that he was tense and expectant.
"Is it a band of the Johnnies?" he whispered.
"I merely heard 'em. I didn't see 'em," replied the sergeant, "but I'm thinkin' from the way they come creepin' through the woods that it's Slade and his gang."
"If that's so we'd better look out. Those fellows are woodsmen and they'll be sure to see signs that we're here."
"Right you are, Mr. Mason. It's well the lady left so soon, and that we're between them and her."