"There is a force of the enemy of at least fifty men coming up the road, and in three minutes more they will fall upon your rear!" repeated Deck, speaking as clearly as though he had been reading his piece in school. "Where do they come from?" demanded Tom, as he looked back in the direction indicated by the sabre of his friend, and they were the best of friends. "I don't know anything at all about it," answered Deck impatiently. The fresh troopers of the lieutenant's command were driving the enemy before them by the vigorous fighting they had put into the attack, and they were somewhat superior in numbers. By the time Deck had given his warning the enemy had been forced back to the point where the wagon had emerged from the fields and woods. The lieutenant was obviously very unwilling to give an order to retreat when victory was almost within his grasp. It was the first action in which he had been engaged, and his pride as a soldier was implicated. Tom looked again at the approaching re-enforcement of the enemy; and then very reluctantly he summoned the bugler, and ordered him to sound the call, "To the rear." It was given in the quickest of time; and the faces of the troopers indicated their astonishment and chagrin at the nature of the call, when victory was only a question of minutes. The men fell back; but the enemy were not disposed to follow them, and perhaps believed they had gained a victory. They were facing down the road, and they could not help seeing that a re-enforcement for their side was approaching. The lieutenant in command reformed his men, but he did not order them to charge upon their retiring foe. "I don't understand this business, Deck," said Tom Belthorpe, when he realized that the officer in command of the enemy did not intend to pursue him. "I don't understand anything beyond what I can see with my own eyes," replied Deck. "I have just come over this region in a wagon, and I advise you to retreat towards the railroad, if you will excuse me for saying so." The lieutenant gave the order for his men to retire in the direction indicated, and the officer and Deck followed them. "We were within two minutes of a victory, Deck," said Lieutenant Belthorpe, still panting with the exertion he had put forth in the combat. "But you would have lost it, and had the tables turned on you two minutes later," replied Deck. "What next?" asked the officer, who, in his inability to understand the situation, was perplexed and baffled. "I don't feel like running away just as we were whipping those Texans." "But it is easier to run away before you have been whipped yourself than it would be afterwards. I should judge that the force approaching is the other half of the Rangers' company. There they come," added Deck, as the furious riders seen in the distance halted in the road near where the bridge-burners had proposed to camp for the night.