The sergeant hastened back to his post; and the major rode up to the cross-roads, just in time to meet the scouts who had been sent up the east road, coming down the hill at full speed. There were only two of them; but they had left two others at the hill road.
The pair of riders who came in as the major reached the cross-roads were scouts; for they had been sent out with orders to go where they pleased in the hills to obtain all the information they could, especially in regard to the approach of any body of the enemy. They were not pickets nor skirmishers, who are sent out to act on fixed lines.
"We have just come from the hill road," said one of the scouts, as he saluted the major. "A detachment of the Texans has just come down from the hills, and all four of us retreated behind a knoll to see where they were going."
"And where were they going?" demanded the commander impatiently.
"They kept on the hill road, going north."
"How many of them were there?"
"Forty-two, besides the officer in command, who had one arm in a sling, and his head bound up so that he could not wear his cap."
"That must have been the troop that we engaged on the south road," said the major. "But how could they have got around to the point where you saw them?"
The scouts could not answer this question, and the commander sent them back to the point from which they had come. The last he had seen of Captain Dingfield's command was on the south road, retreating at the best speed of their small horses. He had sent Captain Gordon in pursuit as soon as his men were available. So far as he knew, there was no highway by which the hill road could be reached short of six miles south of the cross-roads, near the place where the Texans had camped the night before.
In order to have reached the position where they were reported to be by the scouts, they must have found a way across the country. He opened his map, and began to study it very diligently, to ascertain if there was a road which he had failed to notice before.