We made our acknowledgments; and when I had bespoken good care for Tybee, we took leave of these stout fighters, and of old Ephraim as well, since the borderer was to serve as a guide for the over-mountain men, at least till they were come upon familiar ground to the westward.

’Twas now hard upon ten of the clock in the forenoon, and we had our last sight of the brave little army whilst it was wending its way slowly down the slopes of King’s Mountain.  Of what became of it; how its weary march dragged on from day to day; how it was hampered by the train of captives, halted by rain-swollen torrents, and was well-nigh starved withal; of all these things you may read elsewhere.  But now you must ride with Richard Jennifer and me, and our way lay to the eastward.

All that Sunday we pressed forward, hasting as we could through the stark columned aisles of the autumn-stripped forest, and looking hourly to come upon Tarleton’s legion marching out to Ferguson’s relief.

Since Richard Jennifer had ridden to the hounds in all this middle ground from boyhood, we were able to take my blind wanderings in reverse as the arrow flies; and by nightfall we were well down upon the main traveled road leading to Beattie’s fording of the Catawba.

As your map will show you, this was taking me somewhat out of my way to the northward; but it was Richard’s most direct route to Salisbury and beyond, and by veering thus we made the surer of missing Colonel Tarleton, who, as we thought, would likely cross the river at the lower ford.

Once in the high road we pushed on briskly for the river, nor did we draw rein until the sweating beasts were picking their way in the darkness down the last of the hills which sentinel the Catawba to the westward.

At the foot of this hill a by-road led to Macgowan’s ford some six miles farther down the river, and here, as I supposed, our ways would lie apart.  But when we came to the forking of the road, Richard pulled his mount into the by-path, clapping the spurs to the tired horse so that we were a good mile beyond the forking before I could overtake him.

“How now, lad?” said I, when I had run him down.  “Would you take a fighting hazard when you need not?  There is sure to be a British patrol at the lower ford.”

He jerked his beast down to a walk and we rode in silence side by side for a full minute before he said gruffly:  “You’d never find the way alone.”

I laughed.  “Barring myself, you are the clumsiest of evaders, Dick.  I am on my own ground here, and that you know as well as I.”

“Damn you!” he gritted between his teeth.  “When we are coming near Appleby Hundred you are fierce enough to be rid of me.”

I saw his drift at that:  how he would take all the chance of capture and a spy’s rope for the sake of passing within a mile of Mistress Margery, or of the house he thought she was in.

“Go back, Dick, whilst you may,” said I.  “She is not at Appleby Hundred.”