“But where are we?” I would ask.

“In a den on the river’s edge, a mile or more above your sacked cabin.  ’Tis some dodge-hole hollowed out by the Catawbas long ago and shared since by them and the bears, judging from the stinking reek of it.  Uncanoola steered me hither the night of the raid.”

“Then the chief came off safely?” I said, falling into a dumb and impotent rage that the saying of two words should scant me so of strength to say a third.

“Right as a trivet—­scalps and all,” laughed Jennifer.  “He’ll be the envy of every warrior in the tribe when he vaunts himself at the Catawbas’ council fire.”

I let it rest a while at that, casting about for words to shape a hungrier question.

“Have you no news?” I asked, at length.

“Little or none,” he answered shortly.

“But you have had some word—­some news—­from Appleby Hundred?” I stammered feebly.

“Nothing you’d care to hear,” he rejoined, evasively, I thought. “’Tis as you left it, save that Tarleton whipped away to the south again as suddenly as he came, and our cursing baronet has made the manor house his headquarters in fact, lodging himself and all his troop on Mr. Stair.  From his lying quiet and keeping the Cherokees in tow, there will be some deviltry afoot, I’ll warrant.”

I knew that Falconnet was waiting for the powder cargo, but another matter crowded this aside.

“But—­but Margery?” I queried, on sharpest tenter-hooks to know how much or little he had heard.

I thought his brow darkened at the question, but mayhap it was only a shadow cast by the flickering fire.  At any rate, he laughed hardily.

“She is well—­and well content, I dare swear.  ’Twas only yesterday I saw her taking the air on the river road, with Falconnet for an escort.  You told me once he had a sure hand with the women and it made me mad; but, truly, I have come to think you drew it mild, Jack.”

Now though I could ply a decent ready blade, or keep a firing line from lurching at a pinch, I had not learned to put a snaffle on a blundering tongue, as I have said before.

“Damn him as you please, Dick, and he’ll warrant it.  But you must not judge the lady over harshly, nor always by appearances.  She may have flouted you as a boyish lover, and yet I think—­”

I stopped in sheer bewilderment, shot through and through with keenest agonies of remorseful recollection.  For at the moment I had clean forgot the gulf impassable I had set between these two.  So I would have lapsed into shamed silence, but Jennifer would not suffer it.

“Well, what is it that you think?” he demanded.

“I think—­nay, I may say I know that she thinks well of you, Dick,” I blundered on, seeing no way to put him off.

He gripped my hand, and in his eyes there was the light of the old love reawakening.

“Don’t lift me up to fling me down again, Jack!  How can you know what she thinks of me?” he broke in, eagerly.