A wary and experienced scout would have noticed the slight, though new noise, and Harry and Dalton, stopping, lay perfectly still.
But the officers walked to and fro, undisturbed, and the two boys resumed their creeping flight.
When they reached the forest, they rose gladly from their knees, and ran up the slope, still bearing in mind that time was now the most pressing of all things.

They whistled softly as they neared the little plateau, and Billy's low answering whistle came back.

They hurried up the last reach of the slope, and there he was, the eyes shining in his eager face, the three bridles clutched tightly in his small right hand.
"Did you get what you wanted ?" he asked in a whisper.
"We did, Billy," answered Harry.
"I saw 'em sendin' up shootin' stars an' other shootin' stars way off to the east answerin', an' I didn't know what it meant." "It was their vanguard in the Gap, talking to their army several miles to the eastward.

But we lay in the bushes, Billy, and we heard what their officers said.

All that you heard was true.