The dead buried and the wounded cared for in some rough and ready fashion, preparations were made in all haste for a speedy withdrawal from the neighborhood of the battle-field.  Rumor had it that Tarleton with his invincible legion was within a few hours’ march; and the mountain men, sodden weary with the toils of the flying advance and the hard-fought conflict, were in no fettle to cope with a fresh foe.

As yet I had not made myself known to the patriot commanders, having my hands and heart full with the care of poor Tybee, who was grievously hurt, and being in a measure indifferent to what should befall me.

But now as we were about to march I was dragged before the committee of colonels and put to the question.

“Your uniform is a strange one to us, sir,” said Isaac Shelby, looking me up and down with that heavy-lidded right eye of his.  “Explain your rank and standing, if you please.”

I told my story simply, and, as I thought, effectively; and had only black looks for my pains.

“’Tis a strange tale, surely, sir,—­too strange to be believable,” quoth Shelby.  “You are a traitor, Captain Ireton—­of the kind we need not cumber ourselves with on a march.”

“Who says that word of me?” I demanded, caring not much for that to which his threat pointed, but something for my good name.

Shelby turned and beckoned to a man in the group behind him.  “Stand out, John Whittlesey,” he directed; and I found myself face to face with that rifleman of Colonel Davie’s party who had been so fierce to hang me at the fording of the Catawba.

This man gave his testimony briefly, telling but the bare truth.  A week earlier I had passed in Davie’s camp for a true-blue patriot, this though I was wearing a ragged British uniform at the moment.  As for the witness himself, he had misdoubted me all along, but the colonel had trusted me and had sent me on some secret mission, the inwardness of which he, John Whittlesey, had been unable to come at, though he confessed that he had tried to worm it out of me before parting company with me on the road to Charlotte.

I looked from one to another of my judges.

“If this be all, gentlemen, the man does but confirm my story,” I said.

“It is not all,” said Shelby.  “Mr. Pengarvin, stand forth.”

There was another stir in the backgrounding group and the pettifogger edged his way into the circle, keeping well out of hand-reach of me.  How he had made shift to escape from Ferguson’s men, to change sides, and to turn up thus serenely in the ranks of the over-mountain men, I know not to this day, nor ever shall know.

“Tell these gentlemen what you have told me,” said Shelby, briefly; and the factor, cool and collected now, rehearsed the undeniable facts:  how in Charlotte I had figured as a member of Lord Cornwallis’s military family; how I had carried my malignancy to the patriot cause to the length of throwing a stanch friend to the commonwealth, to wit, one Owen Pengarvin, into the common jail; how, as Lord Cornwallis’s trusted aide-de-camp, I had been sent with an express to Major Ferguson.  Also, he suggested that if I should be searched some proof of my duplicity might be found upon me.