Meantime Butler and Robinson advanced at a wearied pace. The twilight had so far faded as to be only discernible on the western sky. The stars were twinkling through the leaves of the forest, and the light of the fire-fly spangled the wilderness. The road might be descried, in the most open parts of the wood, for some fifty paces ahead; but where the shrubbery was more dense, it was lost in utter darkness. Our travellers, like most wayfarers towards the end of the day, rode silently along, seldom exchanging a word, and anxiously computing the distance which they had yet to traverse before they reached their appointed place of repose. A sense of danger, and the necessity for vigilance, on the present occasion, made them the more silent. "I thought I heard a wild sort of yell just now--people laughing a great way off," said Robinson, "but there's such a hooting of owls and piping of frogs that I mought have been mistaken. Halt, Major. Let me listen--there it is again." "It is the crying of a panther, sergeant; more than a mile from us, by my ear." "It is mightily like the scream of drunken men," replied the sergeant; "and there, too! I thought I heard the clatter of a hoof." The travellers again reined up and listened. "It is more like a deer stalking through the bushes, Galbraith." "No," exclaimed the sergeant, "that's the gallop of a horse making down the road ahead of us, as sure as you are alive; I heard the shoe strike a stone. You must have hearn it too." "I wouldn't be sure," answered Butler. "Look to your pistols, Major, and prime afresh." "We seem to have ridden a great way," said Butler, as he concluded the inspection of his pistols and now held one of them ready in his hand. "Can we have lost ourselves? Should we not have reached the Pacolet before this?" "I have seen no road that could take us astray," replied Robinson, "and, by what we were told just before sundown, I should guess that we couldn't be far off the ford. We hav'n't then quite three miles to Christie's. Well, courage, major! supper and bed were never spoiled by the trouble of getting to them." "Wat Adair, I think, directed us to Christie's?" said Butler. "He did; and I had a mind to propose to you, since we caught him in a trick this morning, to make for some other house, if such a thing was possible, or else to spend the night in the woods." "Perhaps it would be wise, sergeant; and if you think so still, I will be ruled by you." "If we once got by the river-side where our horses mought have water, I almost think I should advise a halt there. Although I have made one observation, Major Butler--that running water is lean fare for a hungry man. Howsever, it won't hurt us, and if you say the word we will stop there." "Then, sergeant, I do say the word."