“’Tis mortal weather.  When September’s hot, it lays over July.  We’ll have a storm this afternoon, I’m thinking.  There’s a deal of travel despite the heat, and I’m not complaining of business.  Mr. Cary of Greenwood is just ahead of you.  There, sir, that’s done!”

The smith arose, patted Selim on the shoulder, and stood back.  “You’ve got a fine horse, Mr. Rand, and that’s certain.  By Meteor, ain’t he, out of Fatima?”

“Yes.  Which of the Carys did you say—­”

“Ludwell Cary.  He came from Malplaquet and rode by an hour ago.  The other passed yesterday—­”

“Did Mr. Cary say which road he would take at the ford?”

“No, he didn’t.  The main road, though, I reckon.  The river road’s bad just now, and he seemed to have time before him.  Thankee, Mr. Rand, and good-day to you!”

Followed by Young isham, Rand travelled on by the dusty road, between the parching elder and ironweed, blackberry and love vine.  There was dust upon the wayside cedars, and the many locust trees let fall their small yellow leaves.  As the sun mounted the heat increased, and with it the interminable, monotonous, and trying zirr, zirr, of the underworld on blade and bush.  He rode with a dark face, and with lines of anger between his brows.  It had come to him like a chance spark to a mine that Ludwell Cary was not at Greenwood, was yet upon the road before him.  He knew day and hour when the other had left Richmond, and there had been more than time to make his journey.

Before him, on the lower ground, a belt of high and deep woods proclaimed a watercourse, and he presently arrived beside a shrunken stream.  Here was a mill, and the miller and a man or two were apparent in the doorway.  The ford lay a hundred yards beyond, and on the far side of the stream the river road and the main road branched.  Travellers paused as a matter of course to give and take the time of day, and now the miller, dusty and white, came out into the road.  “Morning, morning, Mr. Rand!  From Richmond, sir?  So we couldn’t hang Aaron Burr, after all.  Well, he ought to have been, that’s all I’ve got to say!”

“Give me a gourd of water, will you, Bates?  This dust is choking.”

“’Tis that, sir.  But we’ll have a storm before the day is over.  There’s a deal of travel just now.  Mr. Cary of Greenwood passed a short while ago.”

A negro brought a dripping gourd.  Rand put it to his lips and drank the cool water.  “Which road,” he asked, as he gave back the gourd,—­“which road did Mr. Cary take?  The main road or the river road?”

The miller looked over his shoulder.  “Jim and Bob and Shirley, which road did Mr. Cary take?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Reckon he took the main road, Bates.”

“I wasn’t looking, but you could hear his horse’s hoofs, and that wouldn’t have been so on the river road.”

“’Twuz de main road, sah.”

Rand and Young Isham went on, down by the mill and along the bank to the clear, brown, shallow ford, crossed, and paused beneath a guide-post upon the crest of the further bank.  The trees hid the mill.  Before them stretched the main road, to the right dipped between fern and under arching boughs the narrow, broken river road.  “If he went this way,” said Rand slowly, “I’ll go that.  Young Isham—­”