“Yes, sir?”
“Take what men you have left a hundred yards south on the cross-road.”
We could hear them crunching their way through the bushes, until the sound finally died out in the distance.
“Now, Lieutenant, you come with me—softly, and keep your distance.”
We moved back slowly, step by step, until we came to the rear door of the shed. I reached out into the darkness, but without turning my face away from him, and silently severed the picket-rope, retaining the loosened end in my grasp. It was so intensely dark where we stood that I slipped the pistol unobserved into my belt.
“Face to the rear,” I said sternly.
As he turned to obey this order, with quick movement I tripped him, sprang backward, and shut the door.
In a single bound I was upon the back of the black, and had flung the severed rope's end at the flank of the next horse in line. There was a rush of feet, a sharp snapping of cords, a wild scurrying through the bushes, as twenty frightened horses stampeded up the bank, and then, lying face down over the saddle pommel, I sent the startled black crashing down into the shallows of the ford. The fellow on guard tried his best to stop us, but we were past him like the wind. He did not fire, and doubtless in the darkness saw merely a stray horse broken from the picket-rope. The other fellow took one swift shot, but it went wild, and I heard the voice of the enraged lieutenant damning in the distance. Then with a rush we went up the steep bank on the eastern shore, and I sat upright in the saddle and gave the black his rein.