University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Morning broke, and with the first day-streak Robinson turned
out of his bed, leaving Butler so thoroughly bound in the spell of
sleep, that he was not even moved by the loud and heavy tramp
of the sergeant, as that weighty personage donned his clothes.
Horse Shoe's first habit in the morning was to look after Captain
Peter, and he accordingly directed his steps towards the rude shed
which served as a stable, at the foot of the hill. Here, to his surprise,
he discovered that the fence-rails which, the night before,
had been set up as a barrier across the vacant doorway, had been
let down, and that no horses were to be seen about the premises.

“What hocus-pocus has been here?” said he to himself, as he
gazed upon the deserted stable. “Have these rummaging and
thieving Tories been out maraudering in the night? or is it only
one of Captain Peter's old-sodger tricks, letting down bars and
leading the young geldings into mischief? That beast can snuff
the scent of a corn field or a pasture ground as far as a crow smells
gunpowder. He'd dislocate and corruptify any innocent stable of
horses in Carolina!”

In doubt to which of these causes to assign this disappearance
of their cavalry, the sergeant ascended the hill hard-by, and directed
his eye over the neighboring fields, hoping to discover the deserters
in some of the adjacent pastures. But he could get no sight
of them. He then returned to the stable and fell to examining the
ground about the door, in order to learn something of the departure
of the animals by their tracks. These were sufficiently distinct
to convince him that Captain Peter, whose shoes had a peculiar
mark well known to the sergeant, had eloped during the night, in
company with the major's gelding and two others, these being all,

as Horse Shoe had observed, that were in the stable at the time he
had retired to bed. He forthwith followed the foot-prints which led
him into the high road, and thence along it westward for about
two hundred paces, where a set of filed bars, now thrown down,
afforded entrance into the cornfield. At this point the sergeant
traced the deviation of three of the horses into the field, whilst the
fourth, it was evident, had continued upon the road.

The conclusion which Galbraith drew from this phenomenon
was expressed by a wise shake of the head and a profound fit of
abstraction. He took his seat upon a projecting rail at the angle
of the fence, and began to sum up conjectures in the following
phrase:

“The horse that travelled along that road, never travelled of his
own free will: that's as clear as preaching. Well, he wa'n't rode
by Wat nor by Mike Lynch, or else they are arlier men than I
take them to be: but still, I'll take a book oath that creetur went
with a bridle across his head, and a pair o' legs astride his back.
And whoever held that bridle in his hand, did it for no good!
Scampering here and scampering there, and scouring woods in the
night too, when the country is as full of Tories as a beggar's coat
with—, it's a dogmatical bad sign, take it which way you will.
Them three horses had the majority, and it is the nature of these
beasts always to follow the majority: that's an observation I have
made; and, in particular, if there's a cornfield, or an oatpatch, or a
piece of fresh pasture to be got into, every individual horse is unanimous
on the subject.”

Whilst the sergeant was engrossed with these reflections, “he
was ware,” as the old ballads have it, of a man trudging past
him along the road. This was no other than Wat Adair, who was
striding forward with a long and rapid step, and with all the
appearance of one intent upon some pressing business.

“Halloo! who goes there? where away so fast, Wat?” was
Robinson's challenge.

“Horse Shoe!” exclaimed Adair, in a key that bespoke surprise,
and even alarm,—“Ha, ha, ha!—By the old woman's pipe, you
frightened me! I'll swear, Galbraith Robinson, I heard you snoring
as I passed by your window three minutes ago.”

“I'll swear that's not the truest word you ever spoke in your life,

Wat; though true enough for you, mayhap. Do you see how
cleverly yon light has broke across the whole sky? When I first
turned out this morning it was a little ribbon of day: the burning
of a block-house at night, ten miles off, would have made a broader
streak. It was your own snoring you heard, Wat; you have only
forgot under whose window it was.”

“What old witch has been pinching you, Horse Shoe, that you
are up so early?” asked Adair. “Get back to the house, man, I
will be with you presently; I have my farm to look after, I'll see
you presently.”

“You seem to me to be in a very onreasonable hurry, Wat, considering
that you have the day before you. But, softly, I'll walk
with you, if you have no unliking to it.”

“No, no, I'm busy, Galbraith; I'm going to look after my traps;
I'd rather you'd go back to the house and hurry breakfast. Go!
You would only get seratched with briers if you followed me.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Wat! Briers, did you say? Look here, man,
do you see them there legs? Do they look as if they couldn't
laugh at yourn in any sort of scrambling I had a mind to set them
to? Tut, I'll go with you just to larn you the march drill.”

“Then I'll not budge a foot after the traps.”

“You are crusty, Wat Adair; what's the matter with you?”

“Is Major Butler up yet?” asked the woodman thoughtfully.

“Who do you say? Major Butler.”

“Major!” cried Adair, with affected surprise.

“Yes, you called him Major Butler?”

“I had some dream, I think, about him: or, didn't you call him
so yourself, Horse Shoe?”

“Most ondoubtedly, I did not,” replied Robinson seriously.

“Then I dreamt it, Horse Shoe: these dreams sometimes get
into the head, like things we have been told. But, Galbraith, tell
me the plain up-and-down truth, what brings you and Mr. Butler
into these parts? What are you after in Georgia? It does seem
strange to find men that are wanted below, straggling here in our
woods at such a time as this.”

“There are two sorts of men in this world, Wat,” said the
sergeant, with a smile, “them that axes questions, and them that
won't answer questions. Now, which, do you think, I belong to?

Why, to the last, you tinker! Where are our horses, Wat? Tell
me that. Who let them out of the stable?”

“Perhaps they let themselves out,” replied Adair, “they were
not haltered.”

“You are either knave or fool, Wat. Come here. There are
the tracks of the beast that carried the man up this road, who sot
loose all the horses that were in that stable.”

“Mike Lynch, perhaps,” said Adair, with an assumed expression
of ignorance. “Where can that fellow have been so early? Oh, I
remember, he told me last night that he was going this morning to
the blacksmith's. He ought to be back by this time.”

“And you are here to larn the news from him?” said the
sergeant, eyeing Adair with a suspicious scrutiny.

“You have just hit it, Horse Shoe,” returned Wat, laughing.
`I did want to know if there were any more squads of troopers
foraging about this district: for these cursed fellows whip in upon
a man and cut him up blade and ear, without so much as thanks
for their pillage, and so I told Mike to inquire of the blacksmith,
for he is more like to know than anybody else, whether there was
any more of these pestifarious scrummagers abroad.”

“And your traps, Wat?”

“That was only a lie, Galbraith—I confess it. I was afeard to
make you uneasy by telling you what I was after. But still it
wasn't a broad, stark, daylight lie neither; it was only a civil fib,
for I was going after my wolf trap before I got my breakfast. But
here comes Mike.”

At this juncture Lynch was seen emerging from the wood,
mounted on a rough, untrimmed pony, which he was urging forward
under repeated blows with his stick. The little animal was
covered with foam; and, from his travel-worn plight, gave evidence
of having been taxed to the utmost of his strength in a severe
journey. At some hundred paces distant, the rider detected the
presence of Adair and his companion, and came to a sudden halt.
He appeared to deliberate as if with a purpose to escape their
notice; but finding that he was already observed by them, he put
his horse again in motion, advancing only at a slow walk. Adair
hastily quitted Robinson, and, walking forward until he met Lynch,
turned about and accompanied him along the road, conversing

during this interval in a key too low to be heard by the sergeant.

“Here's Horse Shoe thrusting his head into our affairs. Conjure
a lie quickly about your being at the blacksmith's; I told him
you were there to hear the news.”

“Aye, aye! I understand.”

“You saw Hugh?”

“Yes. The gang will be at their post.”

“Hush! Be merry; laugh and have a joke—Horse Shoe is
very suspicious.”

“You have ridden the crop-ear like a stolen horse,” continued
Adair, as soon as he found himself within the sergeant's hearing.
“See what a flurry you have put the dumb beast in. If it had
been your own nag, Mike Lynch, I warrant you would have been
more tedious with him.”

“The crop-ear is not worth the devil's fetching, Wat. He is as
lazy as a land-turtle, and too obstinate for any good-tempered
man's patience. Look at that stick—I have split it into a broom
on the beast.”

“You look more like a man at the end of the day than at the
beginning of it,” said Robinson. “How far had you to ride,
Michael?”

“Only over here to the shop of Billy Watson, in the Buzzard's
nest,” replied Lynch, “which isn't above three miles at the farthest.
My saw wanted setting, so I thought I'd make an early job of it,
but this beast is so cursed dull I have been good three-quarters of
an hour since I left the smith's.”

“What news do you bring?” inquired Adair.

“Oh, none worth telling again. That cross-grained, contrary,
rough-and-tumble bear gouger, old Hide-and-Seek, went down
yesterday with the last squad of Ferguson's new draughts.”

“Wild Tom Eskridge,” said Wat Adair. “You knowed him,
Horse Shoe, a superfluous imp of Satan!” continued the woodman,
laying a particular accent on the penultimate of this favorite adjective,
which he was accustomed to use as expressive of strong
reprobation. So he is cleared out at last! Well, I'm glad on't,
for he was the only fellow in these hills I was afeard would give
you trouble, Galbraith.”

“Superfluous or not,” replied the sergeant, pronouncing the
word in the same manner as the woodman, and equally ignorant
of its meaning, “it will be a bad day for Tom Eskridge, the rank,
obstropolous Tory, when he meets me, Wat Adair. I have reason
to think that he tried to clap some of Tarleton's dragoons on my
back over here at the Waxhaws. There's hemp growing for that
scape-grace at this very time.”

“You heard of no red coats about the Tiger?” asked Adair.

“Not one,” replied Lynch; “the nearest post is Cruger's, in
Ninety-Six.”

“Then your way, Mr. Robinson, is tolerable for to-day,” added
Adair: “but war is war, and there is always some risk to be run
when men are parading with their rifles in their hands. But see!
it is hard upon sunrise. Let us go and give some directions about
breakfast. I will send out some of the boys to hunt up the
horses; they will be ready by the time we have had something to
eat.”

Without further delay, Adair strode rapidly up the hill to the
dwelling-house, the sergeant and Lynch following as soon as the
latter had put his jaded beast in the stable. By the time these
were assembled in the porch the family began to show signs of
life, and it was a little after sunrise when Butler came forth ready
for the prosecution of his journey. A few words were exchanged
in private between Lynch and the woodman, and after much idle
talk and contrived delay, two lazy and loitering negro boys were
sent off in quest of the travellers' horses. Not long after this the
animals were seen coursing from one part of the distant field to
another, defying all attempts to get them into a corner, or to compel
them to pass through the place that had been opened in order
to drive them towards the stable.

There was an air of concern and silent bewilderment visible
upon Butler's features, and an occasional expression of impatience
escaped his lips as he watched from the porch the ineffectual efforts
of the negroes to force the truant steeds towards the house.

“All in good time,” said Adair, answering the thoughts and
looks of Butler, rather than his words, “all in good time; they
must have their play out. It is a good sign, sir, to see a traveller's
horse so capersome of a morning. Wife, make haste with your

preparations; Horse Shoe and his friend here mustn't be kept back
from their day's journey. Stir yourself, Mary Musgrove!”

“Will the gentlemen stay for breakfast?” inquired Mary, with a
doubtful look at Butler.

“Will they? To be sure they will! Would you turn off friends
from the door with empty stomachs, you mink, and especially with
a whole day's starvation ahead of them?” exclaimed the woodman.

“I thought they had far to ride,” replied the girl, “and would
choose, rather than wait, to take some cold provision to eat upon
the road.”

“Tush! Go about your business, niece! The horses are not
caught yet, and you may have your bacon fried before they are at
the door.”

“It shall be ready, then, in a moment,” returned Mary, and she
betook herself diligently to her task of preparation. During the
interval that followed, the maiden several times attempted to gain
a moment's speech with Butler, but the presence of Adair or
Lynch as frequently forbade even a whisper; and the morning
meal was at length set smoking on the table without the arrival of
the desired opportunity. The repast was speedily finished, and the
horses having surrendered to the emissaries who had been despatched
to bring them in, were now in waiting for their masters.
Horse Shoe put into the woodman's hand a small sum of money
in requital for the entertainment afforded to his comrade and himself,
and having arranged their baggage upon the saddles, announced
that they were ready to set forward on their journey.
Whilst the travellers were passing the farewells customary on such
occasions, Mary Musgrove, whose manner during the whole morning
gave many indications of a painful secret concern, now threw
herself in Butler's way, and as she modestly offered him her hand
at parting, and heard the little effusion of gallantry and compliment
with which it was natural for a well-bred man and a soldier
to speak at such a moment, she took the opportunity to whisper—
“The left hand road at the Fork—remember!” and instantly
glided away to another part of the house. Butler paused but for
an instant, and then hurried forward with the sergeant to their
horses.

“Wat, you promised to put us on the track to Grindall's Ford,”
said Horse Shoe, as he rose into his seat.

“I am ready to go part of the way with you,” replied the woodman,
“I will see you to the Fork, and after that you must make
out for yourselves. Michael, fetch me my rifle.”

It was not more than half past six when the party set forth on
their journey. Our two travellers rode along at an easy gait, and
Wat Adair, throwing his rifle carelessly across his shoulder, stepped
out with a long swinging step that kept him, without difficulty,
abreast of the horsemen, as they pursued their way over hill and
dale.

They had not journeyed half a mile before they reached a point
in the woods at which Adair called a halt.

“My trap is but a little off the road,” he said, “and I must
beg you to stop until I see what luck I have this morning. It's a
short business and soon done. This way, Horse Shoe; it is likely
I may give you sport this morning.”

“Our time is pressing,” said Butler. “Pray give us your directions
as to the road, and we will leave you.”

“You would never find it in these woods,” replied Wat; “there
are two or three paths leading through here, and the road is a
blind one till you come to the fork; the trap is not a hundred
yards out of your way.”

“Rather than stop to talk about it, Wat,” said the sergeant,
“we will follow you, so go on.”

The woodman now turned into the thickets, and opening his
way through the bushes, in a few moments conducted the two
soldiers to the foot of a large gum tree.

“By all the crows, I have got my lady!” exclaimed Wat Adair,
with a whoop that made the woods ring. “The saucy slut! I have
yoked her, Horse Shoe Robinson! There's a picture worth looking
at.”

“Who?” cried Butler; “of whom are you speaking?”

“Look for yourself, sir,” replied the woodman. “There's the
mischievous devil; an old she-wolf that I have been hunting these
two years. Oh, ho, madam! Your servant!”

Upon looking near the earth, our travellers descried the object of
this triumphant burst of joy, in a large wolf that was now struggling

to release herself from the thraldom of her position. The trap was
ingeniously contrived. It consisted of a long opening into the
hollow trunk of the tree, beginning about four feet from the ground,
and cut out with an axe down to the root. An aperture had been
made at the upper end of the slit about a foot wide, and the wood
had been hewed away downwards, in such a manner as to render
the slit gradually narrower as it approached the lower extremity,
until near the earth it was not more than four inches in width, thus
forming a wedge-shaped loophole into the hollow body of
the tree. A part of the carcase of a sheep had been placed on
the bottom inside, the scent of which had attracted the wolf, and,
in her eagerness to possess herself of this treasure she had risen on
her hind legs high enough to find the opening sufficiently wide to
allow her head to be thrust in, whence, slipping downwards, the
slit became so narrow as to prevent her from withdrawing her
jaws. The only mode of extrication from this trap was to rear
her body to the same height at which she found admission, an expedient
which, it seems, required more cunning than this proverbially
cunning animal was gifted with. She now stood captive pretty
much in the same manner that oxen are commonly secured in their
stalls.

For a few moments after the prisoner was first perceived, and
during the extravagant yelling of Adair at the success of his stratagem,
she made several desperate but ineffectual efforts to withdraw
her head; but as soon as Butler and Robinson had dismounted,
and, together with their guide, had assembled around
her, she desisted from her struggles, and seemed patiently to resign
herself to the will of her captor. She stood perfectly still with
that passive and even cowardly submission for which, in such circumstances,
this animal is remarkable: her hind legs drooped and
her tail was thrust between them, whilst not a snarl nor an expression
of anger or grief escaped her. Her characteristic sagacity had
been completely baffled by the superior wolfish cunning of her
ensnarer.

Wat laughed aloud with a coarse and almost fiendish laugh, as
he cried out—

“I have cotched the old thief at last, in spite of her cunning!
With a warning to boot. Here is a mark I sot upon her

last winter,” he added, as he raised her fore leg, which was
deprived of the foot; “but she would be prowling, the superfluous
devil! It is in the nature of these here blood-suckers, to keep a
going at their trade, no matter how much they are watched. But
I knowed I'd have her one of these days. These varmints have
always got to pay, one day or another, for their villanies. Wa'n't
she an old fool, Horse Shoe, to walk into this here gum for a
piece of dead mutton? Ha, ha, ha! if she had had only the sense
to rear up, she might have had the laugh on us! But she hadn't;
ha, ha, ha!”

“Well, Wat Adair,” said Robinson, “you had a mischievous
head when you contrived that trap.”

“Feel her ribs, Mr. Butler,” cried Wat, not heeding the sergeant;
“I know who packed that flesh on her. There isn't a
lamb in my flock to-day that wouldn't grin if he was to hear the
news.”

“Well, what are you going to do with her, Adair?” inquired
Butler; “remember you are losing time here.”

“Do with her!” ejaculated the woodman; “that's soon told: I
will skin the devil alive.”

“I hope not,” exclaimed Butler. “It would be an unnecessary
cruelty. Despatch her on the spot with your rifle.”

“I wouldn't waste powder and ball on the varmint,” replied
Adair. “No, no, the knife, the knife!”

“Then cut her throat and be done with it.”

“You are not used to these hellish thieves, sir,” said the woodman.
“There is nothing that isn't too good for them. By the
old sinner, I'll skin her alive! That's the sentence!”

“Once more, I pray not,” said Butler imploringly.

“It is past praying for,” returned Adair, as he drew forth his
knife and began to whet it on a stone. “She shall die by inches,
and be damned to her!” he added, as his eye sparkled with savage
delight. “Now look and see a wolf punished according to her
evil doings.”

The woodman stood over his captive and laughed heartily, as he
pointed out to his companions the quailing and subdued gestures
of his victim, indulging in coarse and vulgar jests whilst he
described minutely the plan of torture he was about to execute.

When he had done with his ribaldry, he slowly drew the point of
his knife down the back-bone of the animal, from the neck to the
tail, sundering the skin along the whole length. “That's the
way to unbutton her jacket,” he said, laughing louder than ever.

“For God's sake, desist!” ejaculated Butler. “For my sake,
save the poor animal from this pain! I will pay you thrice the
value of the skin.”

“Money will not buy her,” said Wat, looking up for an instant.
“Besides, the skin is spoiled by that gash.”

“Here is a guinea, if you will cut her throat,” said Butler,
“and destroy her at once.”

“That would be murder outright,” replied Adair; “I never
take money to do murder; it goes agin my conscience. No, no,
I will undress the old lady, and let her have the benefit of the
cool air in this hot weather. And if she should take cold, you
know, and fall sick and die of that, why then, Mr. Butler, you
can give me the guinea. That will save my conscience,” he
added, with a grin that expressed a struggle between his avarice
and cruelty.

“Come, Galbraith, I will not stay to witness the barbarity of this
savage. Mount your horse, and let us take our chance alone
through the woods. Fellow, I don't wish your further service.”

“Look there now!” said Adair; “where were you born, that
you are so mighty nice upon account of a blood-sucking wolf?
Man, it's impossible to find your way through this country; and
you might, by taking a wrong road, fall in with them that would
think nothing of serving you as I serve this beast.”

“Wat, curse your onnatural heart,” interposed the sergeant.
“Stob her at once. It's no use, Mr. Butler,” he said, finding that
Adair did not heed him, “we can't help ourselves. It's wolf agin
wolf.”

“I knowed you couldn't, Horse Shoe,” cried Wat, with another
laugh. “So you may as well stay to see it out.”

Butler had now walked to his horse, mounted, and retired some
distance into the wood to avoid further converse with the tormentor
of the ensnared beast, and to withdraw himself from a
sight so revolting to his feelings. In the meantime, Adair proceeded
with his operation with an alacrity that showed the innate

eruelty of his temper. He made a cross incision through the skin,
from the point of one shoulder to the other, the devoted subject
of his torture remaining, all the time, motionless and silent. Having
thus severed the skin to suit his purpose, the woodman now,
with an affectation of the most dainty precision, flourished his
knife over the animal's back, and then burst into a loud laugh.

“I can't help laughing,” he exclaimed, “to think what a fine,
dangling, holiday coat I am going to make of it. I shall strip her
as low as the ribs, and then the flaps will hang handsomely. She
will be considered a beauty in the sheep-folds, and then she may
borrow a coat, you see, from some lamb; a wolf in sheep's clothing
is no uncommon sight in this world.”

“Wat Adair,” said Horse Shoe, angrily, “I've a mind to take
the wolf's part and give you a trouncing. You are the savagest
wolf in sheep's clothing yourself that it was ever my luck to see.”

“You think so, Horse Shoe!” cried Wat, tauntingly. “You
might chance to miss your way to-day, so don't make a fool of
yourself! Ill will would only take away from you a finger-post
—and it isn't every road through this district that goes free of the
Tory rangers.”

“Your own day will come yet,” replied Horse Shoe, afraid to
provoke the woodman too far on account of the dependence of
himself and his companion upon Adair's information in regard to
the route of their journey. “We have to give and take quarter
in this world.”

“You see, Horse Shoe,” said Adair, beginning to expostulate,
“I don't like these varmints, no how; that's the reason why.
They are cruel themselves and I like to be cruel to them. It's a
downright pleasure to see them winch, for, bless your soul! they
don't mind common throat-cutting, no more than a calf. Now
here's the way to touch their feelings.”

At this moment he applied the point of his knife to separating
the hide from the flesh on either side of the spine, and then, in his
eagerness to accomplish this object, he placed his knife between his
teeth and began to tug at the skin with his hands, accompanying
the effort with muttered expressions of delight at the involuntary
and but ill-suppressed agonies of the brute. The pain, at length,
became too acute for the wolf, with all her characteristic habits of

submission, to bear, and, in a desperate struggle that ensued between
her and her tormentor, she succeeded, by a convulsive leap,
in extricating herself from her place of durance. The energy of
her effort of deliverance rescued her from the woodman's hand,
and turning short upon her assailant, she fixed her fangs deep into
the fleshy part of his thigh, where, as the foam fell from her lips,
she held on firmly as if determined to sell her life dearly for the
pain she suffered. Adair uttered a groan from the infliction, and,
in the hurry of the instant, dropped his knife upon the ground.
He was thus compelled to bear the torment of the grip, until he
dragged the still pertinaciously-adhering beast a few paces forward,
where, grasping up his knife, he planted it, by one deeply driven
blow, through and through her heart. She silently fell at his feet,
without snarl or bark, releasing her hold only in the impotency of
death.

“Curse her!” cried Adair, “the hard-hearted, bloody-minded
devil! That's the nature of the beast—cruel and wicked to the
last, damn her!” he continued, raving with pain, as he stamped
his heel upon her head: “damn her in the wolf's hell to which
she has gone!”

Robinson stood by, unaiding, and not displeased to see the summary
vengeance thus inflicted by the victim upon the oppressor.
This calmness provoked the woodman, who, with that stoicism
which belongs to uncivilized life, seemed determined to take away
all pretext for the sergeant's exultation, by affecting to make light
of the injury he had received.

“I don't mind the seratch of the cursed creature,” he said, assuming
a badly counterfeited expression of mirth, “but I don't like
to be cheated out of the pleasure of tormenting such mischievous
varmints. It's well for her that she put me in a passion, or she
should have carried a festered carcase that the buzzards might have
fed upon before she died. But come—where is Mr. Butler? I
want that guinea. Ho, sir!” he continued, bawling to Butler, as
he tied up his wound with a strap of buckskin taken from his
pouch, “my guinea! I've killed the devil to please you, seeing
you would have it.”

Butler now rode up to the spot, and, in answer to this appeal,
gave it an angry and indignant refusal.

“Lead us on our way, sir,” he added. “We have lost too much
time already with your brutal delay. Lead on, sir!”

“You will get soon enough to your journey's end,” replied
Adair with a smile, and then sullenly took up his rifle and led the
way through the forest.

A full half hour or more was lost by the incident at the trap,
and Butler's impatience and displeasure continued to be manifested
by the manner with which he urged the woodman forward upon
their journey. After regaining the road, and traversing a piece of
intricate and tangled woodland, by a bridle-path into which their
guide had conducted them, they soon reached a broader and more
beaten highway, along which they rode scarce a mile before they
arrived at the Fork.

“I have seen you safe as far as I promised,” said the woodman,
“and you must now shift for yourselves. You take the right hand
road; about ten miles further you will come to another prong,
there strike to the left, and if you have luck you will get to the
ford before sundown. Three miles further is Christie's. Good bye
t' ye! And Horse Shoe, if you should come across another wolf
stuck in a tree, skin her, d' ye hear? Ha! ha! ha! Good bye!”

“Ride on!” said Butler to the sergeant, who was about making
some reply to Adair; “ride on! Don't heed or answer that fellow,
but take the road he directs. He is a beast and scoundrel.
Faster, good sergeant, faster!”

As he spoke he set his horse to a gallop. Robinson followed at
equal speed, the woodman standing still until the travellers disappeared
from his view behind the thick foliage that overhung their
path. Having seen them thus secure in his toil, the treacherous
guide turned upon his heel, shouldered his rifle, and limped back
to his dwelling.

“I have a strange misgiving of that ruffian, sergeant,” said
Butler, after they had proceeded about a quarter of a mile. “My
mind is perplexed with some unpleasant doubts. What is your
opinion of him?”

“He plays on both sides,” replied Horse Shoe, “and knows
more of you than by rights he ought. He spoke consarning of
you, this morning, as Major Butler. It came out of his mouth
onawares.”

“Ha! Is my name on any part of my baggage or dress?”

“Not that I know of,” replied the sergeant; “and if it was,
Wat can't read.”

“Were you interrupted in your sleep last night, Galbraith? Did
you hear noises in our room?”

“Nothing, Major, louder nor the gnawing of a mouse at the
foot of the plank partition. Did you see a spirit that you look so
solemn?”

“I did, sergeant!” said Butler, with great earnestness of manner.
“I had a dream that had something more than natural in it.”

“You amaze me, Major! If you saw anything, why didn't you
awake me?”

“I hadn't time before it was gone, and then it was too late. I
dreamed, Galbraith, that somehow—for my dream didn't explain
how she came in—Mary Musgrove, the young girl we saw—”

“Ha! ha! ha! Major, that young girl's oversot you! Was
that the sperit?”

“Peace, Galbraith, I am in earnest; listen to me. I dreamt Mary
Musgrove came into our room and warned us that our lives were
in danger; how, I forget, or perhaps she did not tell, but she spoke
of our being waylaid, and, I think, she advised that at this very
fork of the road we have just passed, we should take the left hand
—the right, according to my dream, she said, led to some spring.”

“Perhaps the Dogwood, Major,” said Robinson, laughing; “there
is such a place, somewhere in these parts.”

“The Dogwood! by my life,” exclaimed Butler; “she called it
the Dogwood spring.”

“That's very strange,” said Robinson gravely; “that's very
strange, unless you have hearn some one talk about the spring before
you went to bed last night. For, as sure as you are a gentleman,
there is such a spring not far off, although I don't know exactly
where.”

“And what perplexes me,” continued Butler, “is that, this morning,
almost in the very words of my dream, Mary Musgrove cautioned
me, in a whisper, to take the left road at the fork. How is
she connected with my dream? Or could it have been a reality,
and was it the girl herself who spoke? I have no recollection of
such a word from her before I retired to bed.”

“I have hearn of these sort of things before, major, and never
could make them out. For my share, I believe in dreams. There
is something wrong here,” continued the sergeant, after pondering
over the matter for a few moments, and shaking his head, “there
is something wrong here, Major Butler, as sure as you are born. I
wasn't idle in making my own observations: first, I didn't like the
crossness of Wat's wife last night; then, the granny there, she
raved more like an old witch, with something wicked in her that
wouldn't let her be still, than like your decent old bodies when
they get childish. What did she mean by her palaver about
golden guineas in Wat's pocket, and the English officer? Such
notions don't come naturally into the head, without something to
go upon. And, moreover, when I turned out this morning, before
it was cleverly day, who do you think I saw?”

“Indeed I cannot guess.”

“First, Wat walking up the road with a face like a man that
had sot a house on fire; and when I stopped him to ax what he
was after, down comes Mike Lynch—that peevish bull-dog—from
the woods, on a little knot of a pony, pretty nigh at full speed, and
covered with lather; and there was a sort of colloguing together,
and then a story made up about Mike's being at Billy Watson's,
the blacksmith's. It didn't tell well, major, and it sot me to suspicions.
The gray of the morning is not the time for blacksmith's
work: there's the fire to make up, and what not. Besides, it don't
belong to the trade, as I know, here in the country, to be at work
so arly. I said nothing; but I made a sort of reckoning in my
own mind that they looked like a couple of desarters trying to sham
a sentry. Then again, there was our horses turned loose. There is
something in these signs, you may depend upon it, Major Butler!”

“That fellow has designs against us, Galbraith,” said Butler,
musing, and paying but little attention to the surmises of the
sergeant, “I can hardly think it was a dream. It may have been
Mary Musgrove herself, but how she got there is past my conjecture.
I saw nothing, I only heard the warning. And I would
be sworn she addressed me as Major Butler. You say Wat Adair
gave me the same title?”

“As I am a living man,” replied Horse Shoe, “he wanted
to deny it; and then he pretended it was a fancy of his own.”

“It is very strange, and looks badly,” said Butler.

“Never mind, let the worst come to the worst, we have arms
and legs both,” returned the sergeant.”

“I will take the hint for good or for ill,” said the major. “Sergeant,
strike across into the left hand road; in this I will move no
farther.”

“That's as wise a thing as we can do,” replied Robinson. “If
you have doubts of a man, seem to trust him, but take care not to
follow his advice. There is another hint I will give you, let us
examine our fire-arms to see that we are ready for a battle.”

Butler concurring in this precaution, the sergeant dismounted,
and having primed his rifle afresh, attempted to fire it into the air,
but it merely flashed, without going off. Upon a second trial the
result was the same. This induced a further examination, which
disclosed the fact that the load which had been put in the day
previous had been discharged, and a bullet was now driven home
in the place of the powder. It was obvious that this was designed.
The machination of an enemy became more apparent when, upon
an investigation into the condition of Butler's pistols, they were
also found incapable of being used.

“This is some of Michael Lynch's doings whilst we were eating
our breakfast,” said Horse Shoe, “and it is flat proof of treason in
our camp. I should like to go back if it was only for the satisfaction
of blowing out Wat's brains. But there is no use in argufying
about it. We must set things to rights, and move on with a
good look-out ahead.”

With the utmost apparent indifference to the dangers that beset
them, the sergeant now applied himself to the care of restoring his
rifle to a serviceable condition. With the aid of a small tool which
he carried for such a use, he opened the breach and removed the
ball: Butler's pistols were likewise put in order, and our travellers,
being thus restored to an attitude of defence, turned their horses'
heads into the thicket upon their left, and proceeded across the
space that filled up the angle made by the two branches of the
road; and, having gained that branch which they sought, they
pressed forward diligently upon their journey.

The path they had to travel was lonely and rugged, and it was
but once or twice, during the day, that they met a casual wayfarer

traversing the same wild. From such a source, however, they
were informed that they were on the most direct road to Grindall's
ford, and that the route they had abandoned would have conducted
them to the Dogwood spring, a point much out of their
proper course, and from which the ford might only have been
reached by a difficult and tortuous by-way.

These disclosures opened the eyes of Butler and his companion
to the imminent perils that encompassed them, and prompted them
to the exercise of the strictest vigilance. Like discreet and trusty
soldiers, they pursued their way with the most unwavering
courage, confident that the difficulty of retreat was fully equal to
that of the advance.