The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 29, 1903, Page 2

THE SUNDAY CALL. "Il starve us out in shortest meas- this rate,” he prophesied. “They © trampled down all the standing corn they ‘Tis our notice to quit, we'd best take it. There has been fighting to the south of us—a plenty of Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock, and every man is needed. trong enough to stand the an the gantlet down the rogue and cut across from join Major Davie or Mr. to d 1 was fit enough and would do er he thought best. And then I upon the forbidden ground. unet is still et Appleby Hun- re I sald 1ded ou will join the army at the leave Margery to his tender vels bitter, so bitter that T Richard Jennifer's. rgery Stair is well, and I told you once before. Khe for you or me, unless it anged N you judge her over- s 1 fear you do not love her as Listen: To-night I got i ho being fool e eck for another sight of her. ( b Jack! 1 had it together all the Tory Falconnet holding high is still our hey are scant 1 of their own kidney. Madge dancing like any ligh every Jackanapes that ouse she could mot erred, cut to the heart vet without his younger to-make me unjust d. savagely. “'Tis ng we can give off about our do less e was, and s jealousy t in his heart to langer. B care t nger for either of T tark. Sha them all the cry voice- sharp and : aery ng thern aze 2 again, and found the arrow. It was r shaft. And tightly wrapped was a little ' said Jen- could n ads to free s arrow the parch- of Captain 1 lost again note to ing moment ited at the door bling beside t large s itself. to wait have “I've spelled it the bottom— crabbed fist and!” er to the flicker- phered it to- had said, leave-taking, d then the fing n in French rding of the inarticu- late ome to me out of the darkne silence: “A mol! pour ramour . We f t, each to his own side of ¢ f embers “You make it 7" said I, after a mo- lence. he has prattied the par- to me ever since we were boy 4 together.” e more of the threatening t the end of it we were g other like two wild crea- ing for the spring. fer who spoke first. *'Twas he said: and his voice had mastiff's growl in it. t bitter reproach I should have hurl at the man who had thrice to me. But he said no word t had gone before. * give me the lie, if you like, 1 shall not strike you” He owly, but his face was gray with anger. Then he added, hotly: “You know well that word was meant for me: At this—God forgive me!—my jealous 3 1 broke bounds and I cursed him for ardless coxcomb who must needs think he stood alone in the eye of every he should meet. “She needs a I raged, lost now to every sense f decent justice, “a man, I say! And to whom would she send if not to her—" T choked upon the word. He had risen with me, and we stood face to face In h, grim earth-womb, snarling fiercely &t cach other across the narrow firelit space; two men with every tle to knmit us close together, and yet—God save us all'—a pair of wild beasts strung up to the killing pitch because, forsooth, we must needs front each other across a deadline drawn by the finger of a woman! God knows what would have come of all this had my dear lad been as flerce a fool as L. 'Twas his good common senss that saved us both, I think, for when the savage rival madness was at its height he turned away, swearing we were the very pick and cholce of a world of asses to stand thus feeling for each other's throats when, mayhap, the lady needed both of us. This brought me to my senses at a gallop, as you would guess; to them and to the lighting of the consclence fire with- in whereon to grill the wicked heart that but now had thirsted for & brother's blood. Now God have mercy on us both!” I groaned. “Forgive me, Dick, if you can; I was as mgd as any Bedlamite. If I have any claim on her, 'tis mot of her good will, you may be sure. You have the Baronet to fear—not me. He shook his head and pointed to the parchment—to the line in French cis Falconnet was under the same her—or at least in easy call— wrote that, Jack. He is nc rival—nor yours.” d set me thinking, and I would king out the strands that jeal- wrath had woven for me into the web happenings. Setting aside the story by hraim Yeates, there was 0of that she had ever fa- vored the Englishman; nay, more, till 1 had come to be madly jealous of Falcon- net, had made sure that Jennifer was the ed one. At as one sees a landscape struck out clear and vivid by the lightning's ash, 1 saw the true meaning of the word I i brought—saw it and went kr to grope blindly for the ad let fall when Dick had found it. Jack?"” he asked, gently. sword!" 1 gasped “We 14 e been half-way there by this. Yeates Tis Falconnet she fears. as at bay—hark you, at bay and esperate. That word of hers to the t was her poor pitiful deflance bullt trust in p and we have Jain here. He found the my hand, crying “Come on! You can strew the dust and ashes on me later. You sald you loved her the better, and I do believe it now, Jack! You trusted her, as I did not We'll fight as one man to cut her out of coil, whatever it may be; and af that is done I'll make my bow and leave you a fair fleld.” “Nay, nay; that you shall not, Dick,” I began, but he was half way through the narrow passage to the open, trafling the anc broadsword and the bearskin bed: and I was fain to follow leavi protest all unfinished. word and thrust it into CHAPTER XVIIL IN WHICH WE HEAR NEWS FROM THE SOUTH. r as might be guessed, it wanted our or two of daybreak when we made a landing within the boundaries of Appleby Hundred, and beached and hid the pirogue in the bushes king the approaches from the road 1 river would be better guarded than om the wood, we skirted a wide- thicket tangle, spared by my ears before to be a grouse As § sight nor sound of any enemy; no light of candles at the heuse, or of camn- beneath the trees. A little way within the grove, where the ps made the darkness 1 night, Jennifer went on all feel around as if in search of on the sward. Whereat I to know what he would be ir fours to somethir lied so 1 He rose, muttering, half as to himself: “I thought I'd never be so far out of reckoning.” Then to me: “A few hours the Cherokees were encamped just You are standing in the ashes of their fire" “S807" said I “Then they have gone?” “Gone from this safely enough, to be sure. They have been gone some hours; the cinders are cold and dew wet.” “So much the better,” I would say, thinking only that now there would be the fewer enemies to fight. He clipt my arm suddenly, putting the value of an oath into his gripping of it. “Come awake, man: this i{s no time to be a-daze!” His whisper was a sharp behest, with a shake of the gripped arm “If the Indians are gone, it means that the powder train has come too.” said L I was still thinking, with less than a clod’s wit, that this would send the Baro- net captain about his master's business, and so Margery would have sucease to him for a time, at least. But Jennifer fetched me awake with another whip-lash word or two. “Jack! has the night's work gone to your head? If Falconnet has got his marching orders you may be sure he's tried by hook or crook to play ‘safe bind, safe find,” with Madge. By heaven! 'twas that she was feared of and we are here too late! Come on!" With that he faced about and ran, and forgetting to loose his grip on my arm, took me with him till I broke away to have my sword hand free. So running, we came presently to the open space be- fore the house, and, truly, it was well for us that the place was clean deserted; for by this we had both forgot the very name of prudence. Jennifer outran me to the door by halt a length and fell to hammering flercely on the panel with the pommel of his broadsword. “Open! Mr. Stajr; open!” he shouted, between the batterings, but it was five full minutes before the fan-light over- head began to show some faint glimmer- ings of a candle coming from the rooms beyond. Richard rested at that, and in the pause a thin voice shrilled from within. “Be off, you runagates! Of, I say! or I fire upon ye through the door!" Giving no heed to the threat, Dick set up his clamor again, calling out his name and bidding the old man open to a friend. In some notching of the hubbub I heard the unmistakable click of a gun-flint on steel. There was barely time to trip my reckless batterer and to fall flat with him on the door-stone when a gun went off within, and a handful of slugs, breaching the oaken panel at the height of a man's middle, went screeching over us. Before I knew what he would be at, Richard was up with an oath, backing off to hurl himself, shoulder on, against the door. It gave with a splintering crash, letting him in headlong. I followed less hastily. It was as black as a setter's mouth within, the gun fire having snuffed here. sis. the old man’'s candle out. But we had flint and steel and tinder-box, and when the punk was alight, Jennifer found the candle under foot and gave it me. It took fire with a fizzing like a rocket fuse, and was well blackened with gunpowder. When the flint had fafled to bring the firing spark, the old man had set his plece off with the candle flame. We found him in the nook made by the turn of the stalr, flung thither, as it seemed, by the recoil of the great bell- mouthed blunderbuss which he was still clutching. The fall had partly stunned him, but he was alive enough to protest feebly that he would take a dozen oaths upon his loyalty to the cause; that he had mistook us for some thieving marauders of the other side; craftily leaving cause and party without a name till he should have his cue from us. ‘Whereupon Richard loosed his neckcloth to give him better breathing space. “Yes, they're gone—all gone, curse 'em, and they've taken every plack and baw- bee they could lay their thieving hands upon,” he mumbled presently. ‘‘’'Tis llke the dogs, to stay on here and eat and drink me out of house and home, and then to scurry off when I'm most like to need protection.” “But Madge?’ says Richard. “Is she safe In bed?" “She's a jade!"” was all the answer he got. Then the old man sat up and peered around the end of the settle to where I stood. I saw he did not recognize me, and was well enough content to let it rest thus. “Madge, &'ye say? She's gone; gone where neither you nor that dour-faced deevil that befooled us all will find her soon, I promise you, Dickie Jennifer!” he snapped; and I gave them my” back and stumbled blindly to the door, mak- ing sure his next word would tell my poor wronged lad all that he should have learned from never any-other lips but mine own. But Richard himself parri the impending stroke of truth, saying: -but when I would have found a grain “So she 1s safs and well, Mr. Stair, 'tis 1 I ask to know.” “She is safe enough; safer by far than you are at this minute, my young cock- a-hoop rebel, now that the King—God save him!—has'his own again.” I turned quickly on the broad door- stone to look within. ‘How 1s that you say, Mr. Stair?” says Dick. “The King—but that is only the old Tory ‘cry. There will never be a King again this side of the water.” The old man reached out and hooked & lean finger in the lad's buttonhole. “Say you so, Richard Jennifer? Then you will never have heard the glorious news?” This with a leer that might have been of triumph or the mere whetting of gossip eagerness—I could not tell. “No,” says Richard, with much indif- ference. 2§ “Hear it, then. 'Twas at Camden, four days since. They cameé together in the murk of the Wednesday morning, my Lord Cornwallis and that poor fool Gates. De Kalb is dead; your blethering Irishman, Rutherford, is captured; and your rag-tag rebel army is scattered to the four winds. And that's not all. On the Friday, Colonel Tarleton came up with Sumter at Fishing Creek and caught him napping. Whereupon, Charlie Mc- Dowell and the overmountain men, see- ing all was lost, broke their camp on the Broad and took to their heels, every man jack of them for himself. So ye see, Dickie Jennifer, there's never a c corporal's guard left in either Carolina to stand in the King's way.” He rattled all this off glibly, like a child repeating some lesson got by hu.r:’; comfort in the hope that it was a farra- go of Falconnet’'s lies, Jennifer made the truth appear in answer to a curt ques- tlo “'Tis beyond doubt—all this, Mr. Stair?” ‘The old loyalist—loyalist now, if never certainly before—sat down on the settle al o T - o, . S g e ) and laughed; a dry wizened cackle of a laugh that sounded like the crumpling of new parchment. “You'd best be off, light foot and tight foot, Master Richard, lest you learn shrewdly for yourself. 'Tis in ever:- body’s mouth by this. There were some five-and-forty of the King's friends come together here no longer than yestore’en to drink his Majesty's health, and eh, man! but it will cost me a pretty penny! ‘Will that satisfy ye?” “Yes,” said Jennifer, thinking, may- hap, as I did, that nothing short of gos- pel-true news would have sufficed to un- lock this poor old miser's wine cellar. “And that fetches me back to our errand here. You say Madge is safe. Does that mean that you have spirited her away since last night?” “Dinna fash yoursel’ sbout Madge, Richard Jennifer. She's meat for your betters, sir!” rasped the old man, lasp- ing into the mother tongue, as he did now and then in fear or anger. “Still, I would know what you mean when you say she is safe,” says Rich- ard, whose determination to crack a nut ‘was always proportioned to the hardness of the shell. Gilbert Stair cursed him roundly for an impertinent jackanapes, and then gave him his answer . “’Tis none of your business, Dickie Jennifer, but you may know and be hanged to you! She rode home with the Witherbys last night after the rout, and will be by this safe away in t'other Caro- iira where your cursed Whiggeries Carena lift head or hand.” f her own free will?” Dick persisted. amme! yes; bag, baggage, serving wench and all. Now will you be off about your business before some spying rascal lays an Information sgainst me for harboring you?" Richard joined me on the door-stone. The dawn was in its twilight now, and the great trees on the lawn wers taking gray and ghostly shapes in the dim per- spective. heard what he had to say?” t seems we have missed our cue on all side he went on, not without bit- terness. “I would we might have had a chance to fire a shot or- two before the ship went down. “At Camden, you mean? That's but the beginning; the real battles are all to be fought yet, I should say." He shook his head despondently. “You are a newcomer, Jack, and you know not how near outworn the country is. Gil- bert Stair has the right of it when he says theré will be nothing to stop the red coats now." I called to mind the resolute little handful under Captain Abram Forney, one of many such, he had told me, and would not yield the point. “There will be plenty of fighting yet, and we must go bear a hand where it is needed most,” saild I. “Where will that be, think you? At Charlotte?” He looked at me reproachfully. “This time 'tis you who are the lag- gard in love, John Ireton. Will you go and leave Mistress Margery wanting an answer to her poor little cry for help?” I shrugged. “What would you? Has she not taken her affair into her own hands?” “God knows how much or little she has had to say about it,” said he. “But I mean to know, too, before I put my name on any company roll.” We were among the trees by this, moving off for safety’s sake, since the day was coming; and he broke off short to wheel and face me as one who would throttle a growling cur before it has a chance to bite. “We know the worst of each other now, Jack, and we must stand to our compact. Let us see her safe beyond peradventure of a doubt; then I'm with you to fight the redcoats single-handed, if you like. I know what you will say—that the coun- try calls us now more than ever; but there must needs be some little rallying interval after all this disaster, and. " “Have done, Richard,” said I. “Set the pace and mayhap I can keep step with you. What do you propose?’’ “‘This, that we go to Witherby Hall and get speech with Mistress Madge, if 80 be—" “‘Stay a moment. Who are these With- erbys?” ““A dyed-In-the-wool Tory family seated Eome ten miles across the line in York district. #True, 'tls a rank Tory hotbed over there'and we shall run some risk."” ‘‘Never name risk to me if you love me, Richard Jennifer!” I broke in. *“What is your plan?” His answer was prompt and to the point: *“To press on afoot through the forest till we come to the York settle- ment; then to borrow a pair of To.y horses and ride like gentlemen. Are you game for it?" I hesitated. “I see no great risk in all this, and whatever the hazard, 'tis less for one than for two. You'd best go alone, Richard.” He saw my meaning; that I would stand aside and let him be her succor if she needed help. But he would not have it so. “No,” he sald, doggedly. “We'll go to- gether, and she shall choose between us for a champlon if she is in the humor to honor efther of us. That is what 'twill come to in the end, and I warn you fairly, John Ireton, I shall neither give nor take advantage in this strife. I said last night that [ would stand aside, but that I can- not—not till she herself says the killing word with her own lips.” “And that word will be—1" “That she loves another man. Come, let us be at it: we should be well out of this before the plantation people are astir.” CHAPTER XIX. HOW A STUMBLING HORSE BROUGHT TIDINGS. [aving a definite thing to do we set about it forthwith, taking to the flelds and making a wide circuit around the manor house and the quarters where the blacks were already stirring to come out to the river and so to cress in our canoe. Not to take certain hazard for the sake of better speed, we shunned the road, and for the first hour or so were not greatly hindered by keeping to the forest th. It was in the densest underwood, when we could hear the purring of a stream ahead, that Jennifer finally stopped sud- denly and began to sniff the air. “‘Smoke,” he sald briefly in answer to my query. “A camp fire, with meat abroll. Never tell me you can't smell it.” I said I could not—did not, at all events. “Then you are not as sharp set for breakfast as I am. Call up your wood- craft and we'll stalk it.” And, suiting the action to the word, he dropped noise- lessly on hands and knees to inch his way cautiously out of the thicket. I followed at his heels, marveling at his skill in thi the maze with never a snapped twig to betray him. For though I have called him a youthling, he came of great, square-shouldered English stock and was well upon fourteen stone for welght. Yet upon occasion, as now, he could be as lithe and cat-like as an Indian, stealthy in approach and tiger-strong to spring. In due time our creeping progress brought us out of the thicket on the brink of the higher creek bank. Just here the stream ran in a shallow ravine with shelv- ing banks of clay, and on its hither mar- gin was a bit of grassy intervale hl; enough for a horse to roll upon. Thoug! it was sadly out of season the carcass of & deer, fresh killed, hung upon a branch of the nearest tree, with a rifle leaning against the trunk as if to guard it. In the middle of the bit of sward a tiny camp fire burned, and at the fire, squatting with thelr backs to us and each toasting a cut of the deer's meat on & forked , were two men. 'ocrl:e of these men would pass by eour: tesy as a white. His hunting shirt =— leggings were of deerskin, well .flmuew and greasy, with leather fringes at peams of leg and sleeve. For all the sum- mer heat he wore a cap fashioned of rac- coon skin with the fur on; and for mx; great cap his iron-gray hair, matted n!:. unkempt, served as a fringe to keep v other tasselings In caunuunc:] ¥ hunting shirt was belted at the wals . in the belt was thrust a sheathless knifo huge enough to serve & butcher’s purpose. From two leather thongs crossed upoR his shoulders hung the powder-horn .3 bullet pouch, and these, with the knife and rifle, summed up his acoouterments. The other was a red man and his attire was simpler. Like all our southern In- dians, he went naked to the waist, but the savage's love of ornament showed forth in the fringe of colored porcupine quills on his leggings and in his rm:n hair bestuck with feathers. For arms he had an arsenal in his belt—two great pls- tols, & tomahawk and the scalping-knifs, this last smaller than the white mans carving tool, but far more viclous 100 o t tw for a moment or ree:lru(e on the brink of the ravine, nel- ther of us recognizing the two below. Then my young rashlidg must needs le out a yell. = "No:. by all that's lucky! he c“‘di and would have leaped to his fest. But al the instant the earth-edge gave way Uft- Jer him and he was sent tumbling wit the small landslide of clay down upon the twain at the fire. It went within a trembling hur‘;; breadth of a tragedy. The two at ¢ - fire sprang up as one man, and the boun: that set the hunter afoot brought his long rifle to his shoulder. But that the Indian o we: crouched ir- was the quicker Richard’s life vo;xlm have paild the penalty of his Tl D, I think. At the trigger-pulling instant the Catawba thrust the thick oé his hand between stone and steel, Coe the fiint bit, harmless for Jennifer, in of the Indian. mg\{{?;!‘" he ejaculated, in his soft gut- tural. “No want kill Captain Jennif’, hey?” Sphraim Yeates lowered his weapon nnlc;p:leleased the pinched hand held fast un-flint. hy‘-\‘\};«:n,g I'm daddled, fair and squars, Cap'n Dick!” he declared. “Jest one ‘more shake of a dead lamb's tail, and I'd 'a had ye on my mind, sartain sure! I al- lowed ye knowed better than to come whammling ddwn that-away behint a man whilst he's a-cooking his ven'son. Dick laughed and called to me to fol- low, as I could. And his answer to the old borderer was no answer at all. “'Tis to be hoped you and the chief don't mean to be niddering with that deer's meat. We were guessing but a haif-hour back, Captain Ireton and I, whether or no we'd have to take up belt- slack for our breakfast.” At the word the Catawba whipped out his knife and fell to work hospitably on the meat supply. While we ate, Richard spoke freely of our intendings; and in return Ephraim Yeates was able to confirm Mr. Gilbert Stair's war news to the letter. For all his Tory bias and prejudice, it seemed that Margery's father had spoken by the book. Gates' army was crushed and scattered to the four winds; Thomas Sumters free-lances had been attacked, worsted and driven, with the leader him- self so sorely wounded that he was car- ried from the fleld in a blanket slung between the horses of two of his men; and, s was to be expected, the Tories were up end arming in all the north country. 7ruly, the prospect was most gloomy and the outlook for the patriot cause was to the full as desperats as King George himself could wish. “But you, Ephraim, and the chief, here; are you two running away like all the others?” Richard would ask. The old hunter growled his denial be- tween the mouthfuls of scarce-warmed meat. “I reckon ez how 'tis t'other way ‘round; we're sort o' camping on the red- coats’ trail, ez I allow. Ain't we, chief, hey?” The. Catawba's assent was a guttural “Wah!"” and Ephraim Yeates went on to explain. “Ye see, 'tis this-away. You took & laugh out'n me, Cap'n Dick, for spying ‘round on that there Britisher hoss-cap- tain and his redskins; but 'long to'ards the last 1 met up with a thing T two wo'th knowing. "Twas a powder and lead cargo they was a-waiting for; and they're allowing to sneak it through the mountings to the overhill Cherokees.” “Well?" says Dick. The old man, cut another slice of the venison and took his time to impale it on the forked toasting stick. “Well, then I says to the chief, here, says 1, ‘Chief, this here's our A-number- one chance to spile the 'Gyptians; get heap gun, heap powder, heap lead, heap scalp.’ The chief, he says, “Wah!"—which is good Injun talk for anything ye like— and so here we are, hot-foot on the trail o' that there hoss-captain and his pow- der varmints.” “Alone?" sald I, in sheer amazement at the brazgn effrontery of this chase of half a hundred well armed men by two. The old hunter chuckled his dry little laugh. “We ain’t sich tarnation big fools ez.we look, Cap'n John. There's a good plenty of 'em to wallop us, ez I'll allow, if it come to fighting 'em fair and square. But there’ll be some dark night 'r other whenst we can slip up on ‘em and ral a scalp 'r two and lift what plunder we can tote; hey, chief?” But now Richard would inquire what time in the night the powder convoy left Appleby Hundred, and if Gilbert Stair's York district guests had traveled with it. To these askings Yeates made an- swer that Falconnet and his troop, with the Cherokee contingent, had taken the road at midnight, or thereabouts; and that the Witherbys, with Mistress Mar- gery riding her own black mare, and her maid on a pillion behind a negro groom, had passed some two hours later. This was as we had hoped it might be; but when Dick's satisfaction would have set itself in words, the old hunter made a sudden sign for silence and quickly flung himself full length to lay his ear to the ground. Whereat we all began likewise to listen, but I, for one, heard nothing till Yeates said: “A hoss; a- taking the back track like old Jehu the son of Nimshi was a-giving him the whip and spur,” and then we all marked -the distant drumming of hoofbeats. The old borderer sprang afoot, kicked the fire into the stream, and caught up his rifle. “Let's be a-moving.” he said. “We must make out to stop that there hoss-galloper at the ford and find out what-all he's a rip-snorting that-away for.” The road crossing of the stream was but a little way above our breakfast camp; and we were out of the thicket in time to see the horseman, a negro cling- ing with locked arms to the neck of his mount, come tearing down to the ford. At sight of us, or eise because he would not take the water at full speed, the horse reared, pawed the air, and fell clumsily, carrying his skilless rider with him. ‘We picked the black up and soused him in the stream till he found his tongue; and the first wagging of that useful member gave us news to fire the blood in our veins—in Jennifer's and mige, at any rate. 3 “Yah!" he screamed. choking oyt the muddy creek water that had w. strangle. dhim. “Yah! red de kill ebberybody and tote Marg’y and dat Jeanpe ‘oom what dey done!™ CHAPTER XX IN WHICH WE STRIV RUN A RAC It was some time before the arr ted all count of what length the story told principal fact of the carrying off was tress Margery and her maid wa az enough. Pruned down to the simpie of the fact and with all the fo chatterings weeded out, news this: the party of homing revel been ambushed and waylaid at the fo ing of a creek some miles to the sout ‘ward and in the melee the young m and her tire-woman had been captur So far as any actual witness of the eye went the negro had seen nothing. Thera had been a volley e from the thicket belly of black dark a swarming a tack to a chorus of fan yells, shouts from the men, shrieks from the wome confusion worse confounded in which the newsbearer himself had been unhorsed and trodden under foot. After which he knew no more till some one—his master, as he thought—kicked him alive and bads him mount and ride post-haste on the backward track to Appleby Hundred, crying the news as he went that Mistress Margaret Stair and her maid had been kidnaped by the Indians. Pinned to the mark and questioned afresh, the slave could not affirm of his own knowledge that any one had been killed outright. Pinned agaln, it proved to be only a guess of his that the one who had given him his orders was his master. In the darkness and fusion he could make surs of nothing; had made sure of nothing save his own frensy of terror and the wording of the message he carried. When we had quizzed him empty we hoisted him upon his beast and s him once more a-gallop on the road to Ap pleby Hundred. That done & hurried council of war was held in which we four fell apart, three against one. Jenni- fer was for instant pursuif, afoot and at top speed, and Ephraim Yeates and the Catawba, abandoning thelr own emprise apparently without a second . thought, sided indifferently with him. For my part, I was for going back to prepare in decent order for a campaign which should promise something more hopeful than the probaBility of speedy exhaus- tion, starvation and failure. For all the good It did I might have spared my pains and saved by breath. Jennifer broke me in the midst, crying out that I was even now killing the pre- cious minutes, and so our {ll-starred ven ture had its launching in the frenz: haste that seldom makes for speed. O small concession I wrung out of his patience—this with the help of Yeates and the Catawba. We went back to h breakfast camp, rekindled the fire anc cooked what we could keep and carry the venison. In spite of this delay it was yet early in the forenoon of that memorable S day, the 20th of August, when we set faces southward and took up the I march to the ford of the ambush By now the sky was wh the wind was blowin tops, but though as the alr was the cooler for the eater rain, and this was truly a blessing, sinc the old hunter put us keen upon our met- tle to keep pace with him. We marched Indian file, Ephralm Yeates in the lead, Unca la at his he and the two of us hea bringing up the rea: wooded wilderness by length and t the old man held on through thick thin, straight as an arrow to the mark; and so we had never a sight of the road again till we came out upon it suddenly at the ford of violence. Here I should have been in despair for the lack of any intelligible hint to point the way, and I think not even Jem: r with all his woodcraft, could have read the record of the onfall as Yeates and the Catawba did. But for all the over- lapping tangle of mocassin and hoof prints neither of these men of the forest was at fault, though ten minutes later even their skill must have been baffled, inasmuch as the first few spitting rain- drops were pattering In the tree-tops when we came upon the ground. “That's jest about what I was most afeard of,” sald the bordeérer, with & hasty glance skyward “Down on your hunkers, chief, and help me read this sign afors the good Lord takes to send- ing rain on the jest and the unjest,” and therewith these two fell to quartering all the ground like tralned dogs nosing for a scent. We stood aside and watched them, Richard and I, realising that we were of small account and should be until, per- chance, it should come to the laying on of hearty blows. After the closest scru- tiny, which took account of every broken twig and trampled blade of grass, this prolonged until the rain was falling smartly to wash out all the fotprints in the dusty road, Yeates and the Indlan gave over and came to join us under the sheltering branches of an oal. “'Tis a mighty cur'is sign; most mighty quoth the hunter, sinmging the rain-drops from his fur cap and empty- ing the pan of his rifle, not upon the ground, as a soldler would, but saving every preclous grain. “Es I allow, I never heerd tell of any Injuns a-doing that-away afore; have you, chief, hey?" The Catawba’s negative was his guttu- ral “Wah,” and Ephraim Yeates, having carefully restored the final grain of the priming to his powder-horn, proceeded to enlighten us at some length. “Mighty cur'ls, ez I was a-saying. The Injuns fixed up an ambushment, blazed In a volley st the closest sort o’ range and followed it up with a toma- hawk and knife rush—lessen that there Afrikin was too plumb daddled to tell any truth whatsomedever. And, spite of all this here rampaging, they never drawed a single drop o' blood In the whole er during scrimmage! Mighty cur'ls, that: ain't it, now? And that ain't a some o' them same Injuns, or leastwise one of ‘em, was a-wearing boots with spurs into ‘em. What say, chief?" Uncanoola held up all the fingers of one hand and two of the othor. “Sebben In- un, one paleface,” he said in confirma- on. I looked at Richard and he gave me back the eyeshot w a hearty curse to speed it. “Falconnet!” sald he, plece to the oath, and I “'Twas that there same hos: sure enough, ez I reckon Yeates. ‘“Maybe one o' you two what-all he n.ought be Jennifer shook his head. silent. "Twas out of all reason to sup that the Baronet would resort to s violence and make a terrifled- captive the woman he wanted to marry. It was curfous mystery, and the hunter’s Saived more. '?.f“;";.fil that ain't all. Whilst some o' the Injuns was a-whooping {t,up acrost the creek, a-chasing the l?lb thnz'“ A3 king tracks for their eity o' refuse, ?:‘he:, run the two gals off into the big woods at the side o' the road o1 Mister Hoss-Captain picks up the A cliucks him on a hoss and sends a-kiting with his flea in his ear; after a the storm held 4 of tail- by 33 d makes which he climbs his hoss an tracks hisself—not to ketch up ‘\Nl(h gals, ez you mought reckon, the but off yon way.” pointing across tha creek and down' the road to the south Jennifer heard him through, had him set it all out again in Dlsines!‘fl-lhlun. and after all could only say: “You are sure you have the sgraight of it, Eph? The borderer appealed to Uncanoola,