“Sirs,” he cried, “the British have stirred the redskins to this.  Will you sit here while women and children are scalped, and those devils” (he called them worse names) “Stuart and Cameron go unpunished?”

My father got up from the corner where he sat, and stood beside the man.

“I ken Alec Cameron,” said he.

The man looked at him with amazement.

“Ay?” said he, “I shouldn’t think you’d own it.  Damn him,” he cried, “if we catch him we’ll skin him alive.”

“I ken Cameron,” my father repeated, “and I’ll gang with you to skin him alive.”

The man seized his hand and wrung it.

“But first I must be in Charlestown,” said my father.

The next morning we sold our pelts.  And though the mare was tired, we pushed southward, I behind the saddle.  I had much to think about, wondering what was to become of me while my father went to skin Cameron.  I had not the least doubt that he would do it.  The world is a storybook to a lad of nine, and the thought of Charlestown filled me with a delight unspeakable.  Perchance he would leave me in Charlestown.

At nightfall we came into a settlement called the Waxhaws.  And there being no tavern there, and the mare being very jaded and the roads heavy, we cast about for a place to sleep.  The sunlight slanting over the pine forest glistened on the pools in the wet fields.  And it so chanced that splashing across these, swinging a milk-pail over his head, shouting at the top of his voice, was a red-headed lad of my own age.  My father hailed him, and he came running towards us, still shouting, and vaulted the rails.  He stood before us, eying me with a most mischievous look in his blue eyes, and dabbling in the red mud with his toes.  I remember I thought him a queer-looking boy.  He was lanky, and he had a very long face under his tousled hair.

My father asked him where he could spend the night.

“Wal,” said the boy, “I reckon Uncle Crawford might take you in.  And again he mightn’t.”

He ran ahead, still swinging the pail.  And we, following, came at length to a comfortable-looking farmhouse.  As we stopped at the doorway a stout, motherly woman filled it.  She held her knitting in her hand.

“You Andy!” she cried, “have you fetched the milk?”

Andy tried to look repentant.

“I declare I’ll tan you,” said the lady.  “Git out this instant.  What rascality have you been in?”

“I fetched home visitors, Ma,” said Andy.

“Visitors!” cried the lady.  “What ’ll your Uncle Crawford say?” And she looked at us smiling, but with no great hostility.

“Pardon me, Madam,” said my father, “if we seem to intrude.  But my mare is tired, and we have nowhere to stay.”

Uncle Crawford did take us in.  He was a man of substance in that country,—­a north of Ireland man by birth, if I remember right.

I went to bed with the red-headed boy, whose name was Andy Jackson.  I remember that his mother came into our little room under the eaves and made Andy say his prayers, and me after him.  But when she was gone out, Andy stumped his toe getting into bed in the dark and swore with a brilliancy and vehemence that astonished me.