He ever afterward
held that his choice of this seemingly less preferable road was the
result of a swift process of unconscious reasoning--for he maintained
that what we call intuition is but an instantaneous perception of
facts and of their inevitable inferences, too rapid for the reflective
part of the mind to record.
He felt the pressure of time relaxed, for a troop of horse going by
the circuitous route Meadows had indicated could not have reached the
camp in the hours since they had passed the place where Meadows had
seen them. So he let his horse breathe wherever the road was broken by
ascents. At last he drew up, for a moment, upon an eminence which
gave, by daylight, a wide view of country. Much of this expanse being
clear of timber, and clad in snow, it yielded something to a
night-accustomed eye, despite the darkness. A low, far-off, steady,
snow-muffled beating, which had imperceptibly begun to play on
Winwood's ear, indicated a particular direction for his gaze.
Straining his senses, he looked.
Against the dusky-white background of snow, he could make out an
indistinct, irregular, undulating line of moving dark objects. He
recognised this appearance as the night aspect of a distant band of
horsemen. They were travelling in a line parallel to his own.
Presently, he knew, they would turn toward him, and change their
linear appearance to that of a compact mass. But he waited not for
that.
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