Half of the troops dashed after the suspicious person, who was our acquaintance Humphries; the other half, slowly returning, re-entered the old trail, and kept their way towards the flying object and the pursuit. The lieutenant found no difficulty in misleading his pursuers, having once drawn them back to their original route. They urged the chase hotly after him, but he knew his course, and was cool and confident. Doubling continually through bog and through brier—now behind this, now under that clump of foliage or brush—he contrived to boggle them continually in perpetual intricacies, each more difficult than the other, until he not only led them into the very thick of the ambuscading party, still maintaining his original lead upon them, but he scattered them so far asunder, that mutual assistance became impossible.
It was then that, gathering himself up for breath along the edge of a bank, he coolly wiped the moisture from his brows, looking from side to side, as he heard the splashing in the water or the rustling in the brush of his bewildered pursuers. He, meanwhile, fairly concealed from their sight by a thick cluster of laurels that rose out of the bay before him, conceiving the time to have arrived for action, gave the shrill whistle with which his men were familiar. The pursuers heard it reverberate all around them from a dozen echoes of the swamp; they gave back, and there was a pause in the chase, as if by common consent. The sound had something supernatural and chilling in it; and the instinct of each, but a moment before so hot upon the heels of the outlaw, was now to regain his starting-place, and recover his security with his breath.
But retreat was not so easy, and prudence counselled too late. They made the effort, however; but to succeed was denied them. The word of command reached their ears in another voice than that of their own leader, and in the next instant came the sharp cracking reports of the rifle—two, three, four.
Travis went down at the first shot; they beheld his fall distinctly, as he stood upon the highest point of the ridge, which was visible for a hundred yards round. For a moment more, the enemy remained invisible; but Major Singleton now gave his orders shrilly and coolly:—
"Steady, men—in file, open order—trot!"
