That familiarity with darkness which renders objects at first all but invisible gradually distinguishable through the gloom, had enabled Scott and his contingent with some degree of certainty to fix their surroundings, as well as to form a tolerable conception of their position. Directing a trooper to sound a bugle blast, it was answered by one from the advancing party, and in a short while they could distinguish the figures of men and horses as they came round a bend of the hill to the left of where they had halted. In answer to the Major’s challenge, these forces were soon discovered to be the two divisions which had ascended to the hill on its eastern and western slopes. It appeared that, warned of the danger with which they were threatened, the band had fled before they could reach them, but from sheltered clefts in the hills above they had kept up a desultory fire upon their pursuers, without exposing themselves to danger. It would have been useless in the darkness to endeavour to search for a concealed foe well acquainted with the ground, to which they were comparative strangers, exposing themselves to chance shots which they might possibly be in no condition to return. They were compelled, however, to await the arrival of the fourth division of their force, which, advancing by the northern slope, owing to the longer distance to be covered, might yet be some time before reaching the appointed rendezvous. An hour went by, when from the other side of the hill there came faint sounds of a rifle discharge, repeated at more frequent intervals. Turning in the direction from which they proceeded, and putting their horses to the trot, Major Scott’s division, reinforced by the other two bands, made such haste as the nature of the ground to be traversed, and the dim light to guide them, would permit, in order to reach their comrades, who appeared to have met with the band of outlaws. Aided by rifts in the clouds overhead, through which "the stars in their courses" occasionally looked down, rendering objects slightly less obscure than during the earlier hours of the night, they were able to make fair progress. But the country being so well covered with clumps of pine and maple, spruce and cedar, and the dense bush and scrub, with hundreds of interlacing creeping plants making up a tangled mass difficult to penetrate, speed had frequently to be slackened until a passage could be found, or forced, through the obstructions which nature with such prodigality and lavishness had spread in their path. Emerging at length on to a spacious plateau, they found themselves facing a series of well-wooded terraces, from which, however, they were separated by a deep ravine, now dry, but in the rainy season the source of drainage from the hills to the plains.