The pressure within the fort, like a flood, opened the gates of it, despite the sturdily disapproving figure of a young man who stood silent under the sentry box, leaning on his Deckard.  He was Colonel George Rogers Clark,[1] Commander-in-chief of the backwoodsmen of Kentucky, whose power was reenforced by that strange thing called an education.  It was this, no doubt, gave him command of words when he chose to use them.

[1] It appears that Mr. Clark had not yet received the title of Colonel, though he held command.—­Editor.

“Faith,” said Terence, as we passed him, “’tis a foine man he is, and a gintleman born.  Wasn’t it him gathered the Convintion here in Harrodstown last year that chose him and another to go to the Virginia legislatoor?  And him but a lad, ye might say.  The divil fly away wid his caution!  Sure the redskins is as toired as us, and gone home to the wives and childher, bad cess to thim.”

And so the first day the gates were opened we went into the fields a little way; and the next day a little farther.  They had once seemed to me an unexplored and forbidden country as I searched them with my eyes from the sentry boxes.  And yet I felt a shame to go with Polly Ann and Mrs. Cowan and the women while James Ray and Tom sat with the guard of men between us and the forest line.  Like a child on a holiday, Polly Ann ran hither and thither among the stalks, her black hair flying and a song on her lips.

“Soon we’ll be having a little home of our own, Davy,” she cried; “Tom has the place chose on a knoll by the river, and the land is rich with hickory and pawpaw.  I reckon we may be going there next week.”

Caution being born into me with all the strength of a vice, I said nothing.  Whereupon she seized me in her strong hands and shook me.

“Ye little imp!” said she, while the women paused in their work to laugh at us.

“The boy is right, Polly Ann,” said Mrs. Harrod, “and he’s got more sense than most of the men in the fort.”

“Ay, that he has,” the gaunt Mrs. Cowan put in, eying me fiercely, while she gave one of her own offsprings a slap that sent him spinning.

Whatever Polly Ann might have said would have been to the point, but it was lost, for just then the sound of a shot came down the wind, and a half a score of women stampeded through the stalks, carrying me down like a reed before them.  When I staggered to my feet Polly Ann and Mrs. Cowan and Mrs. Harrod were standing alone.  For there was little of fear in those three.

“Shucks!” said Mrs. Cowan, “I reckon it’s that Jim Ray shooting at a mark,” and she began to pick nettles again.

“Vimmen is a shy critter,” remarked Swein Poulsson, coming up.  I had a shrewd notion that he had run with the others.

“Wimmen!” Mrs. Cowan fairly roared.  “Wimmen!  Tell us how ye went in March with the boys to fight the varmints at the Sugar Orchard, Swein!”