goose-flesh cool,--we raced back to our peeping-place on the
skirting of the camp ground.

Here Dick wrung my hand, calling himself all the knaves unspeakable for
letting me take a risk which he was pleased to call his own; and with
that I stepped out into the firelight and was fair afoot in the enemy's
camp.

XXVIII

IN WHICH I SADDLE THE BLACK MARE

Having so good a disguise, the thing I had set myself to do would seem
to ask for little more than peaceful boldness held in check by common
caution.

The point where I had broken cover to step into the circle of fire light
was nearly equidistant from the Englishmen's camp on the right and the
horse meadow on the left, so I had not to pass within recognition range
of the great fire; indeed, I might have skulked in the laurel cover all
the way, thus coming to the horses unseen by any, but that I was afraid
Falconnet might miss his trooper. So I thought it best to show myself
discreetly.

Copying our captive's lounging stride, I first held a sauntering course
down to the stream's edge, keeping the great camp-fire and the droning
Indian hive well to the right and far enough aloof to baffle any
over-curious eye at either. Coming to the stream without mishap, I
stopped and made a feint of drinking; after which I crossed and climbed
slowly toward the makeshift powder magazine.

As I have said, the camp was pitched in a small savanna or natural
clearing on the right bank of the little river. This clearing was
hedged about by the forest on three sides, and backed by the densely
wooded steeps and crags of the western cliff. I guessed the compass of
it to be something more than an acre; not greatly more, since the fire
at the troop camp lighted all its boundaries.

On the left or opposite bank of the stream there was no intervale at
all. The ground rose sharply from the water's edge in a rough hillside
thickly studded and bestrewn with boulders great and small; fallen
cleavings and hewings from the crags of the eastern cliff. 'Twas at the
foot of one of the boulders, a huge overhanging mass of weather-riven
rock facing the camp, that the powder cargo was sheltered; so isolated
to be out of danger from the camp-fires.

From the hillside just below this powder rock I could look back upon the
camp _en enfilade_, as an artilleryman would say. Nearest at hand was
the half-moon of Indian lodges with the hollow of the crescent facing
the stream, and a caldron fire burni