I
offered him a liberal price for the service.
"It's a bad job, but if you must, you must," he groaned. And he soon
had three horses under the saddle.
I eyed the beasts with some disfavor. They were evidently half-mustang,
and I thought undersized for such a journey. But I was to learn before
the night was out the virtues of strength and endurance that lie in the
blood of the Indian horse.
"Hist! What's that?" said Fitzhugh, extinguishing the light.
The voices of the storm and the uneasy champing of the horses were the
only sounds that rewarded a minute's listening.
"We must chance it," said I, after looking cautiously into the
darkness, and finding no signs of a foe.
And in a moment more we were galloping down the street, the hoof-beats
scarcely sounding in the softened earth of the roadway. Not a word was
spoken after the start as we turned through the side streets to avoid
the approaches to the hotel. I looked and listened intently, expecting
each bunch of deeper darkness in the streets to start into life with
shouts of men and crack of revolvers in an effort to stay our flight.
Thatcher led the way, and Fitzhugh rode by my side.
"Look there!" cried Fitzhugh in my ear. "There's some one running to
the hotel!"
I looked, and thought I could see a form moving through the blackness.
The hotel could just be distinguished two blocks away. It might well be
a scout of the enemy hastening to give the alarm.
"Never mind," I said.
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