When they emerged
their course was altered toward the northward.
"Looks like they're turning back."
"No."
The three horses suddenly broke into a gallop. Payne reached for his
field glasses, but before he could bring them to bear the cavalcade had
disappeared behind a cluster of cabbage palms on a small hammock
probably five hundred yards away.
The negroes stopped work suddenly, eyeing their masters for
instructions, but ready to run the next instant if the instructions
were not forthcoming.
"Lie down! Right where you are." Payne's orders seemed to drop the
blacks in their tracks. Relieved at having a white man think for them
they stretched their great bodies in the grass, their eyes not on the
menace of the hammock, but upon Payne. Payne and Higgins remained
standing, their carbines lying across their left arms.
"If they can hit anything at that distance they've got to be pretty
good shots, Hig."
"I'll say they have. Got to have pretty good tools, too; and most of
the rifles I've seen round here are the old forty-fours."
"If they are Garman's men they'll have up-to-date rifles all right."
"Sure. The best money can buy." Higgins shrewdly estimated the range
to the palms. "Say, Payne, if they've got Springfields or something as
good, and can use them, we're making a fool play standing here.
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