Left to myself, I hope I should have had the grace to stand with Jennifer.  But at the turning point of indecision the quick-witted Indian read my thought, and snatching the sword from my hand, gave me no choice but to follow him.

So I ran with him; but as I fled I looked behind and saw a sight to put the ancient hero tales to the blush.  One man against two-score my brave Dick stood, while through the underwood the mounted soldiery came to make the odds still greater.

He never flinched for all the hurtling missiles sent on ahead to cut him down, nor gave a glance aside to where the horsemen were deploying to surround him.  As I looked, the two great pistols belched in the very faces of the nearest Cherokees; and in the momentary check the firearms made, the basket-hilted claymore went to work, rising and falling like a weaver’s beam.

I saw no more; but some heart-bursting minutes later, when Jennifer came racing on behind to share the flight his heroic stand had made a possibility, the swelling sob choked me once again; and when I thought of what this his rescue of me meant to him, I could have blubbered like a boy.

But there was little time or space to give remorse an inning.  The Cherokees, checked but for the moment, were storming hotly at our heels.  And as we ran I heard the shouted command of Falconnet to his mounted men:  “A rescue!  Right oblique, and head them in the road!  Gallop, you devils!”

We ran in Indian file, I at the chief’s heels and Jennifer at mine.  I followed the Catawba blindly; and being as yet little better than half a man in breath and muscle, was well-nigh spent before we crashed down through a tangled briar thicket into the river road.

We were in time, but with no fraction of a minute to spare.  We could hear the pad-pad-pad of the light-footed runners close upon us, following now by the noise we made; and on our left the air was trembling to the thunder of the mounted men coming at a break-neck gallop down the road.

“Thank God!” says Richard, with a quick eyeshot to right and left in the lesser gloom of the open.  “I was afeard even the chief might miss the place in the dark.  Down the bank to the river!—­quick, man, and cautious!  If they smell us out now, we’re no better than buzzard-meat!” And when we reached the water’s edge:  “You taught me how to paddle a pirogue, Jack; I hope you haven’t lost the knack of it yourself.”

“No,” said I; and the three of us slid the hollowed log into the stream.

We were afloat in shortest order, holding the canoe against the current by clinging to the overhanging trees that fringed the bank; yet with paddles poised for a second dash for freedom should the need arise.  I should have dipped forthwith to save the precious minutes, but Jennifer stayed me.

“Hist!” he whispered.  “Hold steady and listen.  They can not see us from above; mayhap we’ve thrown them off the scent.”