It was just that hour before dark when the landscape looks flat to the eye, and forms at a little distance grow confused in outline.

Yet they could see the horseman plainly enough to recognise him.

It was Captain Salt who flew past, well out of pistol-shot, and headed southwards at a stretch-gallop, his hands down and his shoulders bent as he rode.
"Devil seize him if he hasn't got my mare!" roared the man Dick, forgetting his cough and leaping to his feet.

"I can tell the sorrel a mile away!" Then followed a dismayed silence as they watched the escaping rider.
"She's the best nag of the four, too," one of the men muttered gloomily.
"Boys," said the fellow who had first arrested Tristram, "he's done us for a certainty.

In an hour or two he'll reach the French outposts.