g
been in Texas before, and out upon the San Saba--the very place where
now seen! Therefore, the backwoodsman will be acquainted with the
locality, and may strike for the trail he has himself taken. He
remembers Sime's reputation as a tracker; he no longer feels safe. In
the confusion of his senses, his fancy exaggerates his fears, and he
almost dreads to look back across the bottom-land.

Thus apprehensive, he turns his eyes towards the plain, in search of a
better place for his temporary bivouac, or at all events a safer one.
He sees it. To the right, and some two or three hundred yards off is a
_motte_ of timber, standing solitary on the otherwise treeless expanse.
It is the grove of black-jacks, where Hawkins and Tucker halted that
same afternoon.

"The very place!" says Richard Darke to himself, after scrutinising it.
"There I'll be safe every way; can see without being seen. It commands
a view of the pass, and, if the moon keep clear, I'll be able to tell
who comes up, whether friends or foes."

Saying this, he makes for the _motte_.

Reaching it, he dismounts, and, drawing the rein over his horse's head,
leads the animal in among the trees.

At a short distance from the grove's edge is a glade. In this he makes
stop, and secures the horse, by looping the bridle around a branch.

He has a tin canteen hanging over the horn of his saddle, which he lifts
off. It is a large one,--capable of holding a half-gallon. It is three
parts full, not of water, but of whisky. The fourth part he has drunk
during the day, and earlier hours of the night, to give him courage for
the part he had to play. He now drinks to drown his chagrin at having
played it so badly. Cursing his crooked luck, as he calls it, he takes
a swig of the whisky, and then steps back to the place where he entered
among the black-jacks. There taking stand, he awaits the coming of his
confederates.

He keeps his eyes upon the summit of the pass. They cannot come up
without his seeing them, much less go on over the plain.

They must arrive soon, else he will not be able to see them. For he has
brought the canteen along, and, raising it repeatedly to his lips, his
sight is becoming obscured, the equilibrium of his body endangered.

As the vessel grows lighter, so does his head; while his limbs refuse to
support the weight of his body, which oscillates from side to side.

At length, with an indistinct perception of inability to sustain hi