He met neither.  He heard nothing but the usual sighing of the prairie wind that ceased rarely, and he saw nothing but the faint glow on the southern horizon that marked the Mexican camp where he had met his enemy.

He left the arroyo, and saw a dark shadow on the plain, the figure of a man, rifle in hand, Ned instantly sprang back into the arroyo and the stranger did the same.  A curve in the line of this cut in the earth now hid them from each other, and Ned, his body pressed against the bank, waited with beating heart.  He had no doubt that it was a Mexican sentinel or scout more vigilant than the others, and he felt his danger.

Ned in this crisis used the utmost caution.  He did not believe that any other would come, and it must be a test of patience between him and his enemy.  Whoever showed his head first would be likely to lose in the duel for life.  He pressed himself closer and closer against the bank, and sought to detect some movement of the stranger.  He saw nothing and he did not hear a sound.  It seemed that the man had absolutely vanished into space.  It occurred to Ned that it might have been a mere figment of the dusk and his excited brain, but he quickly dismissed the idea.  He had seen the man and he had seen him leap into the arroyo.  There could be no doubt of it.

There was another long wait, and the suspense became acute.  The man was surely on the other side of that curve waiting for him.  He was held fast.  He was almost as much a prisoner as if he lay bound in the Mexican camp.  It seemed to him, too, that the darkness was thinning a little.  It would soon be day and then he could not escape the notice of horsemen from Santa Anna’s army.  He decided that he must risk an advance and he began creeping forward cautiously.  He remembered now what he had forgotten in the first moments of the meeting.  He might yet, even before this sentinel or scout, pass as a Mexican.

He stopped suddenly when he heard a low whistle in front of him.  While it could be heard but a short distance, it was singularly sweet.  It formed the first bars of an old tune, “The World Turned Upside Down,” and Ned promptly recognized it.  The whistle stopped in a moment or two, but Ned took up the air and continued it for a few bars more.  Then, all apprehension gone, he sprang out of the arroyo and stood upon the bank.  Another figure was projected from the arroyo and stood upon the bank facing him, not more than twenty feet away.

Simultaneously Obed White and Edward Fulton advanced, shook hands and laughed.

“You kept me here waiting in this gully at least half an hour,” said Obed.  “Time and I waited long on you.”

“But no longer than I waited on you,” said Ned.  “Why didn’t you think of whistling the tune sooner?”

“Why didn’t you?”

They laughed and shook hands again.

“At any rate, we’re here together again, safe and unharmed,” said Ned.  “And now to see what has become of the Panther.”