as you have guessed before you turned this page, the men who charged so opportunely to cut me out of peril were my captors only in the saving sense.
their overnight bivouac was not above a mile beyond the glade of ambushment. it was in a little dell, cunningly hid; and the embers of the camp-fires were still alive when we of the horse came first to this agreed-on rallying point.
here at this rendezvous in the forest's heart i had my first sight of any fighting fragment of that undisciplined and yet unconquerable patriot home-guard that even in defeat proved too tough a morsel for british jaws to masticate.
they promised little to the eye of a trained soldier, these border levies. in fancy i could see my old field-marshal,—he was the father of all the martinets,—turn up his nose and dismiss them with a contemptuous "ach! mein gott!" and, truly, there was little outward show among them of the sterling metal underneath.
they came singly and in couples, straggling like a routed band of brigands; some loading their pieces as they ran. there was no hint of soldier discipline, and they might have been leaderless for aught i saw of deference to their captain. indeed, at first i could not pick the captain out by any sign, since all were clad in coarsest homespun and well-worn leather, and all wore the long, fringed hunting shirt and raccoon-skin cap of the free borderers.
yet these were a handful of the men who had fought so stoutly against the tory odds at ramsour's mill, their captain being that abram forney of whom you may read in the histories; and though they made no military show, they lacked neither hardihood nor courage, of a certain persevering sort.
"ever come any closter to your amen than that, stranger?" drawled one of them, a grizzled borderer, lank, lean and weather-tanned, with a face that might have been a leathern mask for any hint it gave of what went on behind it. "i'll swear that little whip'-snap' officer cub had the word 'fire' sticking in his teeth when i gave him old sukey's mouthful o' lead to chaw on."
i said i had come as near my exit a time or two before, though always in fair fight; and thereupon was whelmed in an avalanche of questions such as only simple-hearted folk know how to ask.
when i had sufficiently accounted for myself, captain forney—he was the limber-backed young fellow i had ridden behind—gripped my hand and gave me a hearty welcome and congratulation.
"my father and yours were handfast friends, captain ireton. more than that, i've heard my father say he owed yours somewhat on the score of good turns. i'm master glad i've had a chance to even up a little; though as for that, we should both thank the indian." at which he looked around as one who calls an eye-muster and marks a missing man. "where is the chief, ephraim?"—this to the grizzled hunter who was methodically reloading his long rifle.
"he's back yonder, gathering in the hair-crop, i reckon. never you mind about him, cap'n. he'll turn up when he smells the meat a-cooking, immejitly, if not sooner."
here, as i imagine, i looked all the questions that lacked answers; for captain forney took it in hand to fit them out with explications.
"'tis uncanoola, the catawba," he said; "one of the friendlies. he was out a-scouting last night and came in an hour before daybreak with the news that colonel tarleton was set upon hanging a spy of ours. from that to our little ambushment—"
"i see," said i, wanting space to turn the memory leaves. "this catawba: is he a man about my age?" captain forney laughed. "god he only knows an indian's age. but uncanoola has been a man grown these fifteen years or more. i can recall his coming to my father's house when i was but a little cadger."
at that, i remembered, too; remembered a tall, straight young savage, as handsome as a figure done in bronze, who used sometimes to meet me in the lonelier forest wilds when i was out a-hunting; remembered how at first i was afraid of him; how once i would have shot him in a fit of boyish race antipathy and sudden fright had he not flung away his firelock and stood before me defenseless.
also, i recalled a little incident of the terrible scourge in '60 when the black pox bade fair to blot out this tribe of the catawbas; how when my father had found this young savage lying in the forest, plague-stricken and deserted by all his tribesmen, he had saved his life and earned an indian friendship.
"i know this uncanoola," i said. "my father befriended him in the plague of '60, and was never sorry for it, as i believe." then i would ask if these catawbas had ranged themselves on the patriot side, a question which led the young militia captain to give me the news at large while his borderers were breaking camp and making their hasty preparations for the day's march.
"'tis liberty or death with us now; we've burnt our bridges behind us," he said, when he had confirmed the tidings i had had the day before from father matthieu. "and since here in carolina we have to fight each man against his neighbor, 'tis like to go hard with us, lacking help from the north."
"measured by this morning's work, captain forney, these irregulars of yours seem well able to give a good account of themselves," i ventured.
he shook his head doubtfully. he was but a boy in years, but war is a shrewd schoolmaster, and this youth, like many another on the fighting frontier, had matriculated early.
"you've seen us at our best," he amended. "we can ambush like the indians, fire a volley, yell, charge—and run away."
"what's that ye're saying, youngster?" the grizzled hunter had finished reloading his rifle, and, lounging in earshot with all the freedom of the border, would take the captain up sharply on this last.
"you heard me, eph yeates," replied my young captain, curtly.
the old man leaned his rifle against a tree, spat on his hands, cut a clumsy caper in air, and gave tongue in a yell that should have been heard by tarleton's men at appleby.
"by the eternal 'coonskins! i can gouge the eye out of ary man that says eph yeates carn't stand up fair and square and whop his weight in wildcats; and i can do it now, if not sooner!" he shrilled. "come on, you pap-eating, apron-stringed, french-daddied—"
where the blast of vituperative insult would have spent itself in natural course we were not to know, for in the midst another of the borderers, a wiry little man in greasy deerskin, came up behind the capering ancient, whipped an arm around his neck, and in a trice the two went down, kicking, scratching, buffeting and mauling, as like to a pair of battling bobcats as was ever seen.
for a moment i thought my youngster would let them have it out to the finish, but he did not. at his order some of the others pulled the twain apart, reluctantly, i fancied; and when the thing was done the old man caught up his rifle and strode away in blackest wrath without a look behind him.
captain forney shrugged and spread his hands as his french father might have done.
"now you know wherein our weakness lies, captain ireton," he said. "there goes as true a man and as keen a shot as ever pulled trigger. let him fight in his own way, and he'll take cover and name his man for every bullet in his pouch. but as for yielding to decent authority, or standing against trained troops in open field—" he shrugged again and turned to tighten his saddle-girth.
"i see," said i. then i asked him of his plans and intendings, and was told that he and his handful were a-march to join general rutherford, who was gone to the forks of yadkin to break up some tory embodiment thereabouts.
"you have your work cut out to dodge the british light-horse, captain forney," said i; capping the venture by telling him what little i knew of tarleton's dispositions, and also of the indian-arming plot i had overheard.
"we'll dodge the redcoats, never you fear; we're at our best in that," he rejoined, carelessly. "and as to the cherokee upstirring, that's an old story. the king's men have tried it twice and they have not yet caught jack sevier or jimmie robertson a-napping. ease your mind on that score, captain ireton, and come along with us, if you have nothing better to do. i can promise you hard living, and hard fighting enough to keep it in countenance."
at this i was brought down to some consideration of the present and its demands. as fortune's wheel had twirled, i had my life, to be sure; but by the having of it was made the basest traitor to my friend—to jennifer, and no whit less to margery.
'twas out of any thought that i should take the field against the common enemy, leaving this tangled web of mystery and misery behind. in sheerest decency i owed it first to jennifer to make a swift and frank confession of the ill-concluded tale of happenings. that done, i owed it equally to him and margery to find some way to set aside the midnight marriage.
so i fell back upon my wound for an excuse, telling the captain that i was not yet fit to take the field—which was true enough. whereupon he and his men set me well beyond the danger of immediate pursuit and we parted company.
when i was left alone i had no plan that reached beyond the day's end. since to go to jennifer house by daylight would be to run my neck afresh into the noose, i saw nothing for it but to lie in hiding till nightfall. the hiding place that promised best was the old hunting lodge in the forest, and thitherward i turned my face.
it was a wise man who said that he who goes with heavy heart drags heavy feet as well; but while i live i shall remember how that saying clogged the path for me that morning, making the shrub-sweet summer air grow thick and lifeless as i toiled along. for sober second thought, and the unnerving reaction which comes upon the heels of some sharp peril overpast, left me aghast at the coil in which a tricky fate had entangled me.
the second thought made plain the dispiteous hardness of it all, showing me how i had reasoned like a boy in planning for retrieval. would jennifer believe my tale, though i should swear it out word for word on the holy evangelists? i doubted it; and striving to see it through his eyes, was made to doubt it more. for death should have been my justifier, and death had played me false.
as for setting the midnight marriage aside, i made sure the lawyer tribe could find a way, if that were all. but here there was a loyal daughter of the church to reckon with. loathing her bonds, as any true-hearted maiden must, would margery consent to have them broken by the law? i knew well she would not. though our poor knotting of the tie had been little better than a tragic farce, it lacked nothing of force to bind the tender conscience of a woman bred to look upon the churchly rite as final.
so, twist and turn it as i might, the coil was desperate; and as i strode on gloomily, measuring this the first stage in a pilgrimage i had never thought to make, a fire of sullen anger began to smoke and smolder within me, and i could find it in my heart to curse the cruel kindness of my rescuers; to sorrow in my inmost soul that they had come between to make a living recreant of one who would fain have died an honest man.
