“Then you are not committed to Colonel Sevier for a term of service?”

“No; nor to Cleaveland, nor McDowell, nor any.  We heard there was to be fighting hereaway,—­Ephraim Yeates and I,—­and we came as volunteers.”

“Good! then I have a thought which may stand for what it is worth.  To make the most of this victory over Major Ferguson, Gates should be apprised at once and by a sure tongue; and his Lordship should have the news quickly, too, and in a lump, as you say.  Let us take horse and ride post, we two; you to Gates at Hillsborough, and I to Charlotte.”

“I had thought of my part of that,” he said in a muse.  Then he came alive to the risk I should run.  “But you can’t well go back to Cornwallis now, Jack:  ’tis playing with death.  There will be other news-carriers—­there are sure to be; and a single breath to whisper what you have done will hang you higher than Haman.”

I shrugged at this. “’Tis but a war hazard.”

He looked at me curiously.  I saw a shrewd question in his eyes and set instant action as a barrier in the way of its asking.

“Let us find Colonel Sevier and beg us the loan of a pair of horses,” said I; and so we were kept from coming upon the dangerous ground of pointed questions and evasive answers.

Somewhat to my surprise, both Sevier and Shelby fell in at once with our project, commending it heartily; and I learned from the lips of that courtliest of frontiersmen, “Nolichucky Jack,” the real reason for the proposed hurried return of the over-mountain men.  The Cherokees, never to be trusted, had, as it seemed, procured war supplies from the British posts to the southward, and were even now on the verge of an uprising.  By forced marches these hardy borderers hoped to reach their homes in time to defend them.  Otherwise, as both commanders assured us, they would take the field with Gates.

“We have done what we could, Captain Ireton, and not altogether what we would,” said Sevier in the summing-up.  “It remains now for General Gates to drive home the wedge we have entered.”  Then he looked me full in the eyes and asked if I thought Horatio Gates would be the man to beetle that wedge well into the log.

I made haste to say that I knew little of the general; that I was but a prejudiced witness at best, since my father had known and misliked the man in Braddock’s ill-fated campaign against the French in ’55.  But Richard spoke his mind more freely.

“’Tis not in the man at this pass, Colonel Sevier,” he would say; “not after Camden.  I know our Carolinians as well as any, and they will never stand a second time under a defeated leader.  If General Washington would send us some one else; or, best of all, if he would but come himself—­”

“George Washington; ah, there is a man, indeed,” said Sevier, his dark-blue eyes lighting up.  “Whilst he lives, there is always a good hope.  But we must be doing, gentlemen, and so must you.  God speed you both.  Our compliments to General Gates, Mr. Jennifer; and you may tell him what I have told you—­that but for our redskin threateners we should right gladly join him.  As for Lord Cornwallis, you, Captain Ireton, will know best what to say to him.  I pray God you may say it and come off alive to tell us how he took it.”