"Sling carbines! Charge them!"
Something like a shout from the direction of the cross-roads attracted the major's attention at this moment. Wheeling his horse again, he saw the pickets rushing down the hill beyond which they had been observing the enemy on their "funeral march." Their return could mean but one thing, which was that Captain Dingfield's command were advancing.
Lieutenant Belthorpe was hurrying his force to the embankment; and if there were any Rangers there, he would soon confront them. Knox and his companions had reached the top of the bridge, and all of them were busily engaged about something; but the observer could not tell what it was, though the appearance of several small volumes of smoke indicated that the Texans had started several fires on the wooden structure.
The head of the enemy's column had not yet appeared on the hill which shut off the view of the planter's mansion, and there was time enough for the major to make the dispositions of his force. Half of the first company were left, and the whole of the second, except the twenty men doing guard duty at the camp. The commander had in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty-five men on the spot; and with this force he could soon annihilate the fifty troopers, more or less, who were marching to the attack, or were supposed to be doing so.
"Captain Gordon, take what is left of the first company, and make a detour to that hill on the right of the road. It is nothing more than a knoll; and you will attack them on the flank as soon as Truman engages them in the road," said the major.
"I was thinking of suggesting that as soon as you sent for Captain Truman at the knoll on the other side of the road," replied the captain, when he had ordered Gilder, his second lieutenant, to march the platoon to the place indicated.
"I have no doubt that explosion was the signal for the advance of Captain Dingfield," added the major, as he looked back at the bridge, where the sergeant and his men were still at work.
"It looks so; and the Rangers must have had some men over near the bridge who got up that attempt to blow it up. But it looks as though it was a failure," replied Captain Gordon, as he rode off to join his command.