Such was the sacrifice we were put to by our need of company.  But in those days a man was a man, and scarce enough on the Wilderness Trail in that year of ’77.  So we started away from Carter’s Valley on a bright Saturday morning, the grass glistening after a week’s rain, the road sodden, and the smell of the summer earth heavy.  Tom and Weldon walked ahead, driving the two horses, followed by Cutcheon, his head dropped between his shoulders.  The big man, Riley, regaled Polly Ann.

“My pluck is,” said he, “my pluck is to give a redskin no chance.  Shoot ’em down like hogs.  It takes a good un to stalk me, Ma’am.  Up on the Kanawha I’ve had hand-to-hand fights with ’em, and made ’em cry quits.”

“Law!” exclaimed Polly Ann, nudging me, “it was a lucky thing we run into you in the valley.”

But presently we left the road and took a mountain trail,—­as stiff a climb as we had yet had.  Polly Ann went up it like a bird, talking all the while to Riley, who blew like a bellows.  For once he was silent.

We spent two, perchance three, days climbing and descending and fording.  At night Tom would suffer none to watch save Weldon and himself, not trusting Riley or Cutcheon.  And the rascals were well content to sleep.  At length we came, to a cabin on a creek, the corn between the stumps around it choked with weeds, and no sign of smoke in the chimney.  Behind it slanted up, in giant steps, a forest-clad hill of a thousand feet, and in front of it the stream was dammed and lined with cane.

“Who keeps house?” cried Tom, at the threshold.

He pushed back the door, fashioned in one great slab from a forest tree.  His welcome was an angry whir, and a huge yellow rattler lay coiled within, his head reared to strike.  Polly Ann leaned back.

“Mercy,” she cried, “that’s a bad sign.”

But Tom killed the snake, and we made ready to use the cabin that night and the next day.  For the horses were to be rested and meat was to be got, as we could not use our guns so freely on the far side of Cumberland Gap.  In the morning, before he and Weldon left, Tom took me around the end of the cabin.

“Davy,” said he, “I don’t trust these rascals.  Kin you shoot a pistol?”

I reckoned I could.

He had taken one out of the pack he had got from Captain Sevier and pushed it between the logs where the clay had fallen out.  “If they try anything,” said he, “shoot ’em.  And don’t be afeard of killing ’em.”  He patted me on the back, and went off up the slope with Weldon.  Polly Ann and I stood watching them until they were out of sight.

About eleven o’clock Riley and Cutcheon moved off to the edge of a cane-brake near the water, and sat there for a while, talking in low tones.  The horses were belled and spancelled near by, feeding on the cane and wild grass, and Polly Ann was cooking journey-cakes on a stone.

“What makes you so sober, Davy?” she said.