For
what other purpose had they come to this patch of woods?
At last I heard the stamping of horses, and I lay still for a while and
peered all about me for signs of the animals or their possessors. I
moved slowly, then, so as to bring first this open space in line with my
eyes, and then that, until, crawling like a lizard, I found my men. They
were lying on the ground, wrapped in blankets, all asleep, very near the
other end of the grove. In the last open spot of the timber, screened
from view from the prairie by clumps of willows and other bushes, were
six horses, picketed for grazing. There were two grays, a black, two
bays and a chestnut sorrel--the latter clearly a race-horse. They were
all good horses. There were rifles leaning against the trees within
reach of the sleeping men; and from under the coat which one of them was
using for a pillow there stuck out the butt of a navy revolver.
Something--perhaps it was that consciousness which horses have of the
approach of other beings, scent, hearing, or a sense of their own which
we can not understand--made the chestnut race-horse lift his head and
nicker. One of the men rose silently to a sitting posture, and reached
for his rifle. For a moment he seemed to be looking right at me; but his
eyes passed on, and he carefully examined every bit of foliage and every
ant-hill and grass-mound, and all the time he strained his ears for
sounds. I held my breath. At last he lay down again; but in a few
minutes he got up, and woke the others.
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