With this barbarous reflection he discontinues his soliloquy, bethinking himself, how he may best pass the time till his comrades come on. At first he designs alighting, and lying down: for he has been many hours in the saddle, and feels fatigued. But just as he is about to dismount, it occurs to him the place is not a proper one. Around the summit of the pass, the plain is without a stick of timber, not even a bush to give shade or concealment, and of this last he now begins to recognise the need. For, all at once, he recalls a conversation with Borlasse, in which mention was made of Sime Woodley; the robber telling of his having been in Texas before, and out upon the San Saba—the very place where now seen! Therefore, the backwoodsman will be acquainted with the locality, and may strike for the trail he has himself taken. He remembers Sime’s reputation as a tracker; he no longer feels safe. In the confusion of his senses, his fancy exaggerates his fears, and he almost dreads to look back across the bottom-land.
Thus apprehensive, he turns his eyes towards the plain, in search of a better place for his temporary bivouac, or at all events a safer one. He sees it. To the right, and some two or three hundred yards off is a motte of timber, standing solitary on the otherwise treeless expanse. It is the grove of black-jacks, where Hawkins and Tucker halted that same afternoon.
“The very place!” says Richard Darke to himself, after scrutinising it. “There I’ll be safe every way; can see without being seen. It commands a view of the pass, and, if the moon keep clear, I’ll be able to tell who comes up, whether friends or foes.”
Saying this, he makes for the motte.
Reaching it, he dismounts, and, drawing the rein over his horse’s head, leads the animal in among the trees.
At a short distance from the grove’s edge is a glade. In this he makes stop, and secures the horse, by looping the bridle around a branch.
He has a tin canteen hanging over the horn of his saddle, which he lifts off. It is a large one,—capable of holding a half-gallon. It is three parts full, not of water, but of whisky. The fourth part he has drunk during the day, and earlier hours of the night, to give him courage for the part he had to play. He now drinks to drown his chagrin at having played it so badly. Cursing his crooked luck, as he calls it, he takes a swig of the whisky, and then steps back to the place where he entered among the black-jacks. There taking stand, he awaits the coming of his confederates.
He keeps his eyes upon the summit of the pass. They cannot come up without his seeing them, much less go on over the plain.
They must arrive soon, else he will not be able to see them. For he has brought the canteen along, and, raising it repeatedly to his lips, his sight is becoming obscured, the equilibrium of his body endangered.
As the vessel grows lighter, so does his head; while his limbs refuse to support the weight of his body, which oscillates from side to side.