At times we were close upon the British sentries, with every nerve strained tense for fight or flight; anon we would be making wide detours through bog and fen, or beneath the black network of wet branches with the rain-soaked leaf beds under foot to make the horses’ treadings as noiseless as a cat’s.

None the less, in the fullness of time—­’twas near about midnight as we guessed it—­we had our patience well rewarded.  Hovering on the confines of the camp we heard the muffled drum-tap of the reveille, and soon there was the stir of an army making ready for the march.

“Which way will it be, north or south?” whispered Dick, when we had dismounted to cloak the heads of the horses.

“We shall know shortly,” said I; and truly, we did, being well-nigh enveloped and ridden down by the fringe of light-horse deploying to pioneer the way.  When we had sheered off to let this skirmish cloud blow by, Dick struck a spark into his tinder-box to have a sight of his compass needle.

“South and by east,” he announced; “that will mean Beattie’s Ford, I take it.”

“Not unless they swim, horse and foot,” I objected. “’Twill be Macgowan’s, more likely.”

Having this uncertainty to resolve, we must hang upon the skirts of the British advance till we could make sure, and this proved to be a most perilous business.  Yet by riding abreast of the moving main we did resolve the uncertainty; heard the orders passed from man to man, and later saw a small feinting detachment split off to take the road for Beattie’s, whilst the main body held on for Macgowan’s; all this before we were discovered in the gloaming of the dawn by some of Tarleton’s men.

Then, I promise you, my dears, it was neck or nothing, with the devil to take the hindmost.  Away we sped toward the near-by river, spurring our wearied beasts as men who ride for life, with a dozen troopers so close upon us that when I glanced over my shoulder the foremost of the redcoat riders was having his face well bespattered with the mud from my horse’s heels.

’Twas touch and go, but happily, as I have said, the river was at hand.  We came to the high bank some hundred yards above the fording place, and lacking Dick’s example to shame me to the braver course, I fear I should have recoiled at the brink.  But when the lad sent his horse without the missing of a bound far out over the eddying flood, I shook the reins on the sorrel’s neck, gave him the word and shut my eyes.

After all, it was nothing worse than a cold plunge, with a few pistol bullets to spatter harmlessly around us when we came up for air.  Moreover, there were the camp-fires of Davidson’s men on the farther bank to encourage us; and so swimming and wading by turns we got across in time to give the alarum.

As you would guess, there was a mighty stir on our side of the river when we had splashed ashore and got our news well born.  As it turned out, General Davidson’s main camp was a good half-mile back from the river in one of the outfields of Appleby Hundred.  So it chanced there were upon the spot only brave Joe Graham and his fifty riflemen to dispute the passage of an army.