It was prettily,
sharply performed, and their officer's face brightened.
"Very nicely done, Watson," he said to the expectant sergeant. "Deploy
your men to left and right, and clear out those shooters. Make a good
job of it, but no firing unless you have to."
The troopers went at it as if they enjoyed the task, forcing their
restive horses through the thickets, and roughly handling more than one
who ventured to question their authority. Yet the work was over in
less time than it takes to tell, the discomfited regulators driven
pell-mell down the hill and back into the town, the eager cavalrymen
halting only at the command of the bugle. Brant, confident of his
first sergeant in such emergency, merely paused long enough to watch
the men deploy, and then pressed straight up the hill, alone and on
foot. That danger to the besieged was yet imminent was very evident.
The black spiral of smoke had become an enveloping cloud, spreading
rapidly in both directions from its original starting-point, and
already he could distinguish the red glare of angry flames leaping
beneath, fanned by the wind into great sheets of fire, and sweeping
forward with incredible swiftness.
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