"She send "um word; say "good by,"" he repeated.
"What else did she say?" I demanded.
"No say anyt"ing else: say "good by."" He turned upon me at that and I saw why he had kept his face averted. He had on the war paint of a Cherokee chief.
"Uncanoola good Chelakee now," he grinned. "Help redcoat soldier find Captain Long-knife. Wah!"
I saw his drift, and though I knew his courage well, the boldness of the thing staggered me. He, too, had penetrated to the inner lines of the British encampment at Charlotte; and when they had sought an Indian tracker to lift my trail, "twas he who had volunteered. But now my spirits rose. With this unexpected ally we might hope to deal forcefully and yet fairly with my rear-guard.
"Where are your masters now?" I asked.
He spat upon the ground. "Catawba chief has no master," he said, proudly. "Redcoat pale-faces yonder," pointing back the way I had come.
"Make fire, boil tea, sing song, heap smoke pipe."
"We must take them," said I.
He nodded. "Kill "um all; take scalp. Wah!"
The bloodthirstiness of my two allies was appalling. But I undertook to cool the Indian"s ardor, explaining that the redcoat soldiers were the Long-knife"s brothers, in a way, not to be slain save in honorable battle. I am not sure whether I earned the Catawba"s contempt, or his pity for my weakness; but since he was loyal to the son of his old benefactor first, and a savage afterward, he yielded the point.
So now I made him known to my patriarchal host, who all this time had been standing guard at the cabin door with the old Queen"s-arm for a weapon. So we three sat on the door-stone and planned it out. When the night was far enough advanced, we would stalk the soldiers in their camp, sparing life as we could.
When all was settled, the old man gave us a supper of his humble fare, after which we went into the open again to sit out the hours of waiting.
The rain had ceased, but the night was cloudy and the darkness a soft black veil to shroud the nearest objects. High overhead the autumn wind was sighing in the tree-tops, and now and again a sharper gust would bring down a pattering volley of lodged rain-drops on the fallen leaves.
Uncanoola sat apart in stoical silence, smoking his long-stemmed pipe.
The old man and I talked in low tones, or rather he would tell me of his past whilst I sat and listened, holding the little maid in my arms.
After a time the child fell asleep, and I craved permission to put her in the little crib bed in the chimney corner. The flickering light of the fire fell upon her innocent face when I loosed the clasp of the tiny hands about my neck and laid her down. Again the wave of softness submerged me and I bent to leave a kiss upon the sweet unconscious lips.
Ah, my dears, you may smile again, if you will; but at that moment I had a far-off glimpse of the beat.i.tude of fatherhood; I was no longer the hard old soldier I have drawn for you; I was but a man, hungering and thirsting for the love of a wife and trusting, clinging little children like this sweet maid.
I rose, turning my back upon the chimney corner and its holdings with a sigh. For now the time was come for action, and I must needs be a man of blood and iron again.
Lacking the Catawba to guide us, I doubt if either the old man or I could have found my rearguard"s bivouac near the trail I had left. But Uncanoola led us straight through the pitchy darkness; and when we were come upon the three soldiers we found them all asleep around the handful of camp-fire.
"Twould have been murder outright to kill them thus; and now I think the old patriarch forgot his wrongs and was as merciful as I. But not so the Catawba. He had armed himself with a stout war-club, and before I was free to stop him he had knocked two of the three sleepers senseless, and would have battered out their brains but for the old man"s intervention.
As for the officer, I had flung myself upon him in the rush and was having a pretty handful of him. But though he was broad in the shoulders, and as agile as a cat, he was taken at a sleeping man"s disadvantage, and so I presently had the better of him.
"Enough, man! "tis as good as a feast!" he cried, when I had him fast pinioned; and thereupon I let him have breath and freedom to sit up. In the act he had his first good sight of me, as I had mine of him. "Twas Tybee and no other.
"Gad! my Captain," he said, feeling his throat. "If you have a grip like that for your friends, I"m d.a.m.ned glad I"m not your enemy."
"But you are," I rejoined, rather shamefacedly, yet thankful to the finger-tips that I had not consented to a ma.s.sacre. "I am for the Congress and the Commonwealth, Lieutenant, and you are my prisoner. May I trouble you for the despatches you carry?"
He looked up at me with a queer grimace on his boyish face.
"The devil! but you"re a cool hand, Captain Ireton! Whatever you were in that coil at Appleby, you"ve led the spy"s long suit this time. And I"m not sure whether I like you any the worse for it, if so be you must be a rebel." And with that, he gave me the sealed packet and asked what I would do with him.
His query set me thinking. As for the two stunned troopers, I meant to turn them over to the old man for safe keeping; but I was loath to make it harder than need be for this good-natured youngster. So I put him upon his honor.
"Do you know what this packet contains?" I asked.
He laughed. "My Lord did not honor me with his confidence. I was to follow you in to Major Ferguson"s camp, deliver the despatches, and vanish."
"Good; then you need tell no lies. When the Indian has fetched my horse, I shall ride to Ferguson"s camp, and you may ride with me. I shall ask no more than this; that you do not fight again till you are exchanged; and that you will not tell Major Ferguson whose prisoner you are. Do you accept the terms?"
"Gad! I"d be a fool not to. But what"s in the wind, Captain? Surely you can tell me, now that I am safely out of the running."
"You will know in a day or two; and in the meantime ignorance is your best safety. You can tell Major Ferguson that you were waylaid on the road by a party of the enemy, and that you were paroled and fell in with me."
He looked a little rueful, as a good soldier would, but was disposed to make the best of a bad bargain.
"Here"s my hand on it," he said; and a little later we had dragged the two troopers to the cabin, where the old man became surety for their safe keeping, and were feeling our way cautiously westward at the heels of the Catawba who had taken his directions from our patriarch.
We pressed forward in silence through the shadowy labyrinth of the wood for a time, but at the crossing of a small runlet where we would stop to let the horses drink, Tybee burst out a-laughing.
""Tis as good as a play," he said. "Three several times I"ve had to change my mind about you, Captain Ireton, and I"m not c.o.c.k-sure I have your measure yet. But I"ll say this: if you"ve strung my Lord successfully, you"ll be the first to do it and come off alive in the end."
"The end is not yet, my good friend; and I may not come off better than the others," I rejoined. And with that we fared on again till we could see the camp-fires of Ferguson"s little army twinkling between the tree trunks.
x.x.xVIII
IN WHICH WE FIND THE GUN-MAKER
As you may be sure, Major Patrick Ferguson was far too good a soldier to leave his camp unguarded on any side, and whilst we were yet a far cannon-shot from the glimmering fires a sentry"s challenge halted us.
To the man"s "Halt! Who goes there?" I gave the word "Friends," salving my conscience for the needful lie as I might.
"Advance, friends, and give the countersign."
I confessed my ignorance of the night-word, saying that we were a paroled prisoner and a bearer of despatches, and asking that we be taken to Major Ferguson"s headquarters. There was some little cautious demurring on the part of the sentry, but finally he pa.s.sed the word for the guard-captain and we were escorted to the tent of the field commander.
I marked the encampment as I could in pa.s.sing through it. The little army was three-fourths made up of Tory militia; and there was drinking and song-singing and a plentiful lack of discipline around the camp-fires of these auxiliaries. But a different air was abroad in the camp of the regulars; you would see a soldierly alertness on the part of the men, and there was no roistering in that quarter.
Major Ferguson"s tent was on a hillock some distance back from the stream, and thither we were conducted; we, I say, meaning Tybee and myself, for Uncanoola had disappeared like a whiff of smoke at our challenging on the sentry line.
Late as it was, the major was up and hard at work. His tent table, transformed for the time into a mechanic"s work-bench, was littered with gun-barrels and tools and screws and odd-shaped pieces of mechanism--the disjointed parts of that breech-loading musket of which the ingenious Scotchman was the inventor.
Being deep in the creative trance when we came upon him, the major gave us but an absent-minded greeting, listening with the outward ear only when Tybee reported his mission, and his capture and parole.
"From my Lord, ye say? I hope ye left him well," was all the answer the Lieutenant got, the inventor fitting away at his gun-puzzle the while.