""Tis the man," I cut in hastily.
The patriarch shook his head.
"If you be of our side, as you say, he will hang you out of hand."
"So I can make my errand good, I care little how soon he hangs me."
"And what may your errand be? Mayhap I can help you."
"It is to bring him to a stand till the mountain men can overtake him."
The old man trembled with excitement like a boy going into his first battle.
"Ah, if you could--if you could!" he cried. "But "tis too late, now.
Listen: his present camp is but three miles to the westward on Buffalo Creek. I was there no longer ago than the Wednesday. I--I made my submission to him--curse him--so that I might mayhap learn of his plans.
He told me all; how that now he was safe; that the mountaineers were gone off from the fording of the Broad on a false scent; that Tarleton with four hundred of the legion would soon be marching to his relief.
"I stole away when I could, and that night took horse and rode twenty miles to Tom Sumter"s camp at Flint Hill--all to little purpose, I fear.
Poor Tom is still desperately sick of his Fishing Creek wounds, and Colonel Lacey was the only officer fit to go after Shelby and the mountain men to set them straight. I should have gone myself, but--"
"Stay, my good friend," said I; "you go too fast for me. If Ferguson is still out of communication with the main at Charlotte, we may halt him yet."
The old man made a gesture of impatience.
""Tis a thing done because it is as good as done. The major will break camp and march to-morrow morning, and he can reach Charlotte at ease in two days. What with their losing of his trail, the mountain men are those same two days behind him."
"None the less, we shall halt him," said I. "Have you ever an inkhorn and a quill in your cabin?"
"Both; at your service, sir. But I can not understand--"
"We may call it the little maid"s judgment on those who have made her fatherless. But for her stopping of me I should have come unprepared into the camp of the enemy. I am the bearer of a letter from Lord Cornwallis to this same Major Ferguson."
"You?--a bearer of Lord Cornwallis"s despatches?" The old man put a blade"s length between us and held the little one aloft as if he feared I might do her a mischief. I laughed and bade him be comforted.
""Tis a long story, and I may not take the time to tell it now. But a word will suffice. Like yourself, I made my submission--and for the same purpose. My Lord accepted it and made me his despatch-bearer because he thought I knew the way to Ferguson when no one else knew it. But enough of this; time presses. Let me have ink and the quill."
The old man led the way into the cabin and put his writing tools at my disposal. Left to myself, I should have broken the seal of the packet; but my wise old ally, cool and collected now, showed me how to split the paper beneath the wax. Opened and spread before us on the rude slab table, the letter proved to be the briefest of military commands: a peremptory order to Ferguson to rejoin the main body at once, proceeding by forced marches if needful, and on no account to risk engagement with the over-mountain men.
How to change such an order to reverse it in effect, I knew no more than a yokel; but here again my ancient ally showed himself a man of parts.
Dressing the pen to make it the fellow of that used by my Lord Cornwallis, he scanned the handwriting of the letter closely, made a few practice pot-hooks to get the imitative hang of it, and wrote this _postscriptum_ at the bottom of the sheet.
_Since writing the foregoing I have your courier, and his despatches. Lieutenant-colonel Tarleton, with four hundred of the legion, will take the road for you to-night. If battle is forced upon you, make a stand and hold the enemy in check till reinforcements come.
Cornwallis._
The old man sanded the wet penstrokes and bade me say if it would serve.
"Twas a most beautiful forgery. My Lord"s crabbed handwriting was copied to a nicety, and of the two signatures I doubt if the earl himself could have told which was his own; "twas the same circle "C," the same printing "r," the same heavy precision throughout.
"Capital!" said I. "Now, if the lightning would but strike these pursuers of mine, we should have the Scotsman at bay in a hand"s turn."
"How?" said the patriarch; "are you followed?"
I told him I was; told him of my Lord"s plot within a plot--that three light-horse riders, one of them a lieutenant bearing duplicate despatches, had been hard upon my heels all the way from Charlotte.
At this the old warhorse--I learned afterward that he had fought through the French and Indian war--wagged his beard and his eye flashed.
"We must stop them," he said. "Three of them, do you say?"
"Three white men and an Indian trailer."
"Ha! If it were not for the little maid.... Let me think."
He fell to pacing up and down before the fire on the hearth, and I took the small one on my knee to let her chatter to me. "Twas five full minutes before my ancient gave me the worth of his cogitations, but when he did speak it was much to the purpose.
"These marplot rear-guards of yours will spoil it all if they come to Ferguson"s camp either before or after you. Do they know the major"s present whereabouts?"
"No more than I did an hour ago. As I take it, they are depending on me to show them the way."
"Well, then; dead men tell no tales."
"But, my good friend, you forget there are four of them and only two of us! We should stand little chance with them in fair fight."
Again the old man"s eyes snapped and glowed as if pent-fires were behind them.
"Was it fair fight when Tarleton"s men rode in upon Tom Sumter"s rest camp at Fishing Creek and cut down this little maid"s father whilst he was naked and bathing in the stream? Was it fair fight when King George"s Indian devils came down in the dead of night upon our defenseless house at Northby? Never talk to me of fairness, sir, whilst all this b.l.o.o.d.y tyranny is afoot!"
I thought upon it for a little s.p.a.ce. "Twas none so easy to decide. On one hand, stern loyalty to the cause I had espoused pa.s.sed instant sentence on these four men whose lives stood in the way; on the other, common humanity cried out and called it murder.
Never smile, my dears, and hint that I had found me a new heart of mercy since that ambush-killing of the three Cherokee peace-men in the lone valley of the western mountains. We did but give the savages a dole out of their own store of cruel cunning and ferocity. But as for these my trackers, three of them, at least, were soldiers and men of my own race.
I could not do it.
"No," said I, firmly. "These followers of mine must be stopped, as you say, else there is no need of my going on. But there must be no butcher"s work."
The patriarch frowned and wagged his beard again.
"A true patriot should hold himself ready to give his own life or take another"s," quoth he.
"Truly; and I am most willing on both heads. But we have had enough and more than enough of midnight ma.s.sacre."
Where this argument would have led us in the end, I know not, since we were both waxing warm upon it. But in the midst the little maid came running from the open door, her blue eyes wide in childish terror.
"Injun man!" was all she could say; but that was enough. At a bound I reached the door. An Indian was at my horse"s head, loosing the halter, as I thought. Before he could twist to face me the point of the Ferara was at his back.
Luckily, he had the wit not to move. "No kill Uncanoola," he muttered, this without the stirring of a muscle. Then, as if he were talking to the horse: "White squaw, she send "um word; say "good by.""
My point dropped as if another blade had parried the thrust.
"Mistress Margery, you mean? Do you come from her?"