They rode back the few dozen yards to the waiting troop, Dick taking a final glance at the lovely stretch of mountain and forest to their south, so beautiful in the morning light that it seemed impossible for it to hold a foe. Then he was listening to his orders, with his heart beginning to palpitate at the thought of what was to come.
Wyatt’s proposal was carried out to the letter. The first troop rode off with three guns, and the men left stared and wondered, and then stared the more at being ordered to dismount, detach the teams from the wagons, and do over again what had already been done.
Dick sat watching the first troop, already half a mile away, till he saw that Stubbs was trying to catch his attention; and when he met the old sergeant’s eye there was a question in it, and that question was, according to the young officer’s interpretation: “Is the captain going off his head?” And he looked again when Hulton gave the order for the wagon teams of six to be separated from the uniting traces into three pairs, each with its well-armed driver.
But everything was of course done, and was ready for the manoeuvre long before Wyatt and his party had ridden leisurely to the end of the level ground.
Then all at once those waiting saw him call a halt, ride forward with a couple of men as if in doubt, and then wheel round, waving his hand as he galloped back, and the next minute his troop was in full flight.
Dick glanced at Hulton, who gave the order to unlimber and load, his men being already dismounted; and this was hardly executed when a faint burst of shouting was borne upon their ears, and, glittering in the first rays of the sun, a great body of horse came streaming out from different parts among the mountains, looking in the distance like living streams running together into one as they reached the open ground, and tearing on in pursuit of the flying troop.
“Hor! hor!” laughed Stubbs softly, and he looked at Hanson, who was standing at one gun; “another chance for you, my lads. Something to hit at last.”
Just then Hulton gave his orders sharply to the effect that when the men ceased firing and limbered up, the drivers were to leave the wagons and fall in with the rest of the troop, thus augmenting it by the accession of so many more men and horses.