Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/23

 ing on their heads; Indian braves tricked out in full panoply of plumes and paint for their entry into the white man's town. Behind these straggled a long line of laden ponies, urged on by a dozen drivers who rode beside the train, cracking long whips, shouting short, harsh commands.

The caravan filled the road, a road closely walled in by dense thickets of myrtle and the trunks of great oaks, whose branches, curtained with Spanish moss, met and mingled overhead. Lachlan McDonald touched the flank of his chestnut mare with his heel. A little ahead of him the road widened somewhat. He let the mare canter till he had reached this wider space, then pulled her up and wheeled her to the right against a hedge of holly.

There he awaited the pack train's coming; and while he waited, lounging easily in his saddle—a lean, black-haired, slightly aquiline young man, almost as swarthy as an Indian—he threw a curious glance behind him.

From that quarter three horsemen were approaching. Lachlan smiled as he watched them; smiled at their sprawling booted legs, their flapping elbows, their loose-hung cutlasses which belaboured their horses' ribs.

"Seamen out for a holiday," he muttered. "Men from Lance Falcon's ship." In a moment he had forgotten them, for now the pack train was abreast of him.

The two hunters riding in the van nodded but