University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
PURSUIT AND PASTURAGE.

We, who already know that the outlaws must be disappointed
in their search after Sinclair in the stable, must not be surprised
to learn that All-fire Dick and the Serpent made their approaches
to that supposed fortress with the caution of old soldiers.
They knew their man; and quite as well knew how
formidable would be his defence, if wakeful, in such a position,
armed, as he was known to be, with sword and pistols. Blodgit
had also apprized them of the three muskets, and the powder and
ball. He had relieved his own griefs, by telling his whole story.
Their hope lay chiefly in taking Sinclair by surprise, if still in
the stable; though the sagacity of the outlaws readily conceived
the improbability of such a case; unless, indeed, the practice
upon their steeds had been done by other hands than those of
Sinclair. This was not improbable, and there was still a possibility
of finding him asleep, and unsuspicious, in his nest.

They stole upon it, therefore, with the wariness of the wildcat
finding his way into the poultry-yard. Blodgit's key was
well oiled, and they penetrated the stable without making the
slightest noise. We need not report their progress — how they
“snaked” through the stable, and “snaked” through the loft,
and “went on their bellies,” for their pains! Enough that,
after having exercised the nicest vigilance in searching the
premises, they found the nest empty — the bird flown!

“We might have known it,” quoth All-fire Dick, “knowing
the man, and seeing that his horse is gone.”

“What's to be done?” asked the Serpent.

“Done!” was the fierce response, “why, give chase as fast
as may be! Are we to lose a hundred guineas without a ride
for it? He's gone, no doubt, up the road to the Barony — to his
father's. There's no other route for him to take to-night. If

his horse was fresh he might push on farther — knowing we're
here, and thinking we might be after him soon. It's cl'ar he
had some such notion of it, by his cutting the stirrup-leathers.
He's heavy loaded — powder, bullets, muskets, and gould!
He'll ride slow. We must overhaul him in nine miles.”

“That is, if we find the horses.”

“Ay! d—n him! Look you, Sarpent, I've a most etarnal
hate for that same Willie Sinclair. I hate him bekaise he's a
gentleman; and he makes you feel it. I know'd him, and
sarved under him once, and the very look of him made my
blood bile in my veins. I've got his tracks. I've found out
one of his hiding-places in Four-Hole Swamp. I tracked that
big-backed fellow, Jim Ballou, thar, and know the signs. I
shall track him thar some of these days, and 'twon't be his
money that shall save him, I tell you, or his fine gentleman
airs, whenever I can get a fair dig at his ribs. But that's for
another time. Let's hurry off now, and start the boys.”

The horses, we have mentioned, were found by the other
two, greatly to the satisfaction of their leader. It was no pleasant
arrangement, however, that which found them compelled to
pursue without stirrups, and with plough-line bridles: — nay,
hardly these — for one of the fellows rode wholly without bridle
of any sort. But the evil lay mostly in the embarrassment.
There was not one of the outlaws who was not quite as familiar
to the horse as an Arab — who could not have ridden him fearlessly,
glued, as it were, to his back — without harness of any
kind. It was but to clap the knees close to his quarters, wreath
a hand in a wisp of the mane, throw the body forward, and yell
out like a wildcat on a charivari, and the pace, if a killing one,
was so rather to horse than rider. Our outlaws, accordingly,
though furious at the trick played on them, and the injury done
to their equipments, were yet not wholly hors du combat. Sinclair's
operations had only retarded, not prevented, the pursuit.
But the delay was something gained to him, in the jaded condition
of his steed, the burden which he had to carry, and the
wearied state of the rider.

The outlaws allowed no unnecessary time for consultation.
They were all men of prompt action, and their arrangements
were soon made. When about to start, Pete Blodgit was

suddenly seen to appear on horseback among them. His
resolution had been taken at the suggestion of his amiable
mother, who, in the event of Sinclair being taken, was duly
anxious that her son should be present at the division of the
spoils. Not that she deluded herself with the idea that he could
coerce the outlaws into any consideration of his claims. But
something she thought might be done by whining — well knowing
that, though we may brain the insolent mastiff, or the
barking cur, we cast a bone to the lean hound who only looks
up with pitifully pleading visage. This was now the lean hope
of the innocent couple!

But All-fire Dick was not prepared to accord this one chance
to the miserable Pete.

“You here! Git back to your hole. Slink, if you wouldn't
taste cowhide, fasting.”

“I thought you'd let me ride with you, Cappin Dick,” humbly
answered the sneak.

“None of your Cappin Dicks with me. I'm no cappin
I'm `Hell-fire Dick' to friends and inimies. Let you ride with
us! and what good are you? Kin you fight? If you had the
liver of a man would you have let Willie Sinclair strip you of
every shilling? Git back to your hole before I lace you
with a red riband stripe for every inch of white skin on your
back.”

The counsel was enforced by a couple of strokes which sent
the wretch off in a twink. The next moment, with a shrill
whistle, the outlaws were on the road and away.

But Pete Blodgit was not to be left behind. Spite of the terrors
of cowhide, he was resolved to be in at the fleecing of the
victim; and, grinning under his smarts, as well of mind as of
body — for such an animal does suffer from a sort of shame and
sense of despicableness — he pushed his horse forward, sufficiently
in the rear of the pursuing party to escape their notice,
yet sufficiently close to be able to overcome any interval of
space, in tolerably short time, should the others be able to
overhaul the fugitive. Pete had really no definite hope or object
in thus joining the pursuit; but nothing short of the terrors
of death could have overcome the painful fascination of
the adventure. Merely to see the gold of which he had been

deprived — even though he should see every piece of it pass
into other hands — was something better than never to gloat
over it again.

He rode accordingly: — sometimes forgetting himself, and
spurring eagerly ahead — then, under some prudent precautionary
fear, dropping behind into a walk, and preparing to
shroud himself in the bushes, should the outlaws, par hazard,
fall suddenly back upon him.

They, meanwhile, went at the top of their speed. A wild
chase, no doubt, but not without its calculations. Assuming
Sinclair to have had an hour's start of them, he had covered
some five miles of ground. To overtake him was possible; but
they conjectured readily what would be his policy in that event.
He must take to the woods; and, in his doing so, lay their better
chance of securing him, since, throwing themselves between
him and the Barony, cutting him off from that shelter, their
game was to beat the woods, in broad daylight, until he was
found. They were keen dogs for a warm scent, and did not
despair of finding him by daylight. Besides, they could command
the use of hounds, practised in the pursuit of men; and,
even as they rode, they calculated on the necessity of sending
off one of their party, by dawn, down to the kennel of Zeke
Rodgers, one of their confederates, some five miles off. To anticipate
Sinclair, in his attempt to gain the Barony, was their
present object; and, whether they passed him on the road or
not, was by no means a consideration, since the whole of the
next day was before them, and they had no knowledge of military
parties, anywhere about, to interfere with their pleasant
pastime in the hunt. Their policy was an obvious one.

Sinclair, a man of great woodland resources, readily anticipated
all these calculations of the outlaws, if once they undertook
pursuit. But he calculated his own policy also. He did not
push his beast beyond a trot during the hour which he had been
upon the road; and, at the close of this period, he suffered him
to subside into a walk. Thus quietly moving, he was better
able to take in distant sounds, than if he had suffered the hoofs
of his own steed to beat up the ears of silence.

Nimrod was a good walker, and the difference between his
walk and jog-trot was not considerable. He had, accordingly,

compassed some eight miles of his progress, when his rider
caught the sounds of pursuit upon the wind. He instantly took
the woods; but not, as the pursuers anticipated, on that side of
the road upon which the baronial settlement of his father lay;
but the opposite. This procedure, as differing entirely from
the natural suggestions in all similar cases, was designed to put
the pursuit at fault. Sinclair, in the opposite woods, was unsuspected.
The only disadvantage that lay in the adoption of
this plan, was in the necessity which it compelled, of making a
greater circuit than otherwise would have been requisite, and
of exposing the fugitive, for a moment or two, out of cover,
while again crossing the road to recover the region whither his
flight was directed. But this necessity did not seem to involve
much peril, since he could choose his own place and moment
for the attempt.

Satisfied on this score, and that he was sufficiently sheltered
by the dense forest in which he had taken refuge, our hero's
policy now was, to suffer the pursuers to pass him, and to be
sure of this fact himself. With this object, he rode his horse a
hundred yards into the wood, then alighted, fastened him to a
bough, and coolly took a bee-line back to the road, on the very
edge of which he covered himself closely, among a clump of
scrubby oaks. Here, “squat like a toad,” he waited, without
apprehension, the approach of the outlaws. It was only with
a slight quickening of the tides about his heart, that he saw
them at length heave in sight, one after the other, four dark
and hurrying shadows, going at a smart canter, and whirling
along without the slightest heed of the spot where he harbored.
He suffered them to pass out of sight and hearing before he
prepared to rise; and, just when he was about to do so, his keen
ears caught the sound of another horse coming from below.

“Ha! If this should be Peyre St. Julien, now, with his
troop, how we shall make the feathers of these rascals fly.”

Our major of dragoons waited, still crouching in his cover, to
see the approaching party. It was not his friend and comrade
St. Julien.

“Blodgit, as I live!”

He knew him by his horse, which was unfavorably marked,
in the estimation of the jockeys, by four white feet.

“Four white feet,” quoth Sinclair, repeating a proverb,
“give him to the crows.”

Blodgit passed slowly at a jog-trot. Sinclair readily conceived
the secret of the latter's progress.

“They have refused to let him join them in the chase; but
he hankers after his share of the guineas. Fool! they would
slit his weasand before they would let him have a stiver.”

Blodgit was suffered to pass out of sight also, before our fugitive
rose from cover, and picked his way back to the spot where
he had hitched his horse. Here, he restrapped, more securely,
his sack of powder; rearranged his whole equipment; tightened
his girth, reprimed his pistols; then coolly resumed his
progress, using but the one precaution of moving onward, at
such a depth in the cover of the woods, as to keep him from
alarming any person that might happen to be watching along
the road. Fortunately, the region was a familiar one; his old
stamping-ground, distinguished in his memory, by many a
squirrel and 'coon hunt, when a boy, and by numerous achievements
of a more exciting kind, when, grown to man's estate —

Confident, therefore, of his course, Sinclair proceeded as
leisurely and coolly as if untroubled by any apprehension.
Perfect silence brooded over his path. The cool airs of morning
were freshening in the wood — the stars were lessening
above, waning or stealing out of sight. The route was dark
enough to render his forest progress slow; but he betrayed, and
really felt, few anxieties. So perfectly assured was he of his
whereabouts, that, when on a line with the great avenue of the
Barony, he stopped short, and, looking about him, soon found a
little Indian trail which he knew conducted to it; but he had
no purpose to pursue it, and, still pushing forward, he went
fully half a mile above, before he inclined once more toward
the high road. When within speaking distance of it, he
paused, and gathered up his several clues of thought.

“These rascals take for granted that I am harbored in the
woods below. They will skirt the lower edge of the plantation,
covering themselves along the skirts of the open fields and

avenue, to intercept me as I approach. Such are the probabilities.
Well — well!”

And the major of dragoons drew near to the road, slowly,
very slowly, with ears keenly set for the wind, and eyes peering
into the solid darkness that now rose up like a wall across
the route only thirty yards beyond. Thus, looking and listening,
he went forward boldly, and crossed the road in safety,
unseen of mortal eyes.

He found himself now in a dense forest, half a mile above the
avenue, but still forming a part of the immense baronial estate
of his father. He advanced into the thicket a full quarter of a
mile, then turned the head of his horse downward, and made
for the negro settlement. This lay on the edge of a wood,
which formed an admirable physical barrier on the east, fronted
an open indigo-field, in cultivation, upon the west, and by a
narrow lane, between the field and the negro-houses, conducted
to the mansion, and the adjacent buildings; all of which lay
buried in a world of evergreens at the close of a long and
noble avenue of stately forest-trees, elms, water-oaks, and
pines.

Ben Bowlegs was the driver, or orderly-sergeant of Colonel
William Sinclair, of Cherokee war memory. Ben, himself, had
been through the Cherokee war, as a henchman of his master.
Ben was an old soldier, accordingly, and made a first-rate plantation
orderly. He had but one grand idea as a planter, and
that lay in a single word; but that word, like the potent
“sesame” of the Arabian tale, involved a large body of practical
philosophy. “Push!” was the whole sum of Ben's policy.
Push at the beginning, push at the middle, push at the end; be
always pushing! And Ben's pushing made crops! But he did
not spare himself in pushing others. Ben carried out his principles
into practice. He never slept on performances done, as
negroes and common people are very apt to do. He passed to
new ones. He was a moral steam-engine, working himself, and
driving every one ahead. He pushed his master, as well as his
brother-slaves; and assigned him his tasks with the pertinacity
of one who was resolved to be something more than a counsellor.
His reverence for his master was never such as simply to
endeavor to please him. Ben Bowlegs delivered the truth in

spite of consequences. Was Colonel Sinclair about to blunder?
Ben interposed abruptly enough, with —

“Look yer, maussa, ef you wants to play h-ll wid de crop,
da's jist de way for do um. Better now, you go see arter dem
bloodhauss in de pastur'. Dat d—n son ob a skunk, Toby, he
nebber does jussice [justice] to dem young hauss. Da's what
you to see arter! Leff de crap to you driber. You kin truss
him!”

But, thus irreverent to his old master, Ben was quite another
person when dealing with the young one. His love, here, supplied
the place of reverence; and his admiration was of such a
sort as to deprive him of all his critical acumen, when he had
to judge of young Willie's opinions and performances. We
need not attempt to account for his passion for “young Mass
Willie.” Enough, that the fact is unquestionable. And now,
to show our purpose in introducing the driver to our readers at
this moment.

Ben Bowlegs, whether because of some natural aversion to
the sex, or because of the mature period of sixty-two to which
he had arrived, was wifeless and childless. He was perhaps,
too well pleased to be a master, to suffer himself to fall under
the rule of any mistress. Ben dwelt, accordingly, in single-blessedness,
in a very snug cottage, that occupied a salient
angle, ranging at very nearly equal distances from the negro-houses
and the corn-crib. A little grove, and a small turnip-patch,
separated him from the yard in which the mansion-house
stood. The distance was not considerable from either of these
points. Ben's wigwam stood upon pillars of pitch-pine, about
three feet from the ground. You might approach it all the
way from the confines of the forest under cover of sheltering
evergreens. These particulars will sufficiently explain certain
matters which we have now to evolve.

Well! Ben being the sole occupant of his house, it may be
supposed that he slept in tolerable comfort. He usually slept
well.

“Praise de Lawd!” was his occasional exclamation, “dere's
no woman yer to bodder me! Bressings ob de Lawd, dere's no
chillen to dribe de sleep from my eye! I kin hab my sleep
when de night come, and nebber ax no body for le' me 'lone.”

No man ever had a more profound sense of his good fortune,
in these respects, than Ben Bowlegs; and no one, surely, ever
more devoutly acknowledged the beneficence of Providence in
affording him these sufficient causes of gratitude! Ben slept
alone, slept well, and always awoke early. While his young
master, Willie Sinclair, was dodging the outlaws, Ben's nose
was making famous bugle-sounds in his cottage — wasting its
music “on the desert air,” indeed; but, without any cavilling
spirit to rebuke its free privileges. Ben had, accordingly, accomplished
the largest amount of necessary sleep a good hour
before the dawning of the day. He was now wakeful, and meditating
what was to be done that day in the fields. Touching
the tobacco, there was a weeding of the weed to be done; corn
— there was the last hoeing: the corn was nearly made; some
earnest meditations employed him in respect to a little patch
of rice; and there were sundry interests which naturally exercised
the mind of our model driver, particularly as Colonel Sinclair,
who was himself a very good planter, employed no overseer.
It was while busy with his field and farmyard problems,
that Ben Bowlegs was suddenly startled into a new consciousness,
by a certain mysterious rapping upon the floor beneath
him. He listened and rubbed his eyes. The rapping was repeated.

“Lawd Gimini! it's young maussa!”

He jumped out of bed in a twinkle, stooped to the floor,
raised the section of a plank, and our major of dragoons slowly
shot up, from a rather humble posture, into his full height, and
scrambled deftly into the apartment. It was very evident that
the major and the driver had been at the same mysterious play
before. Ben caught his master's hand joyfully, and shook it
with a fiercely-loving gripe.

“Grad for see you, Mass Willie — no look for you dis time,
but mighty grad for see you! T'ink you bin gone wid de sodgers
up into de mountains. But grad for see you yer. Grad
for tell you, sir, all's well yer, 'cept de ole colonel, dat's got
de debbil and all-fire in his foot ag'in! But Miss Carrie's like
a rose in de morning, and little Lottie is anoder leetle rose in
de morning; and ebbry pusson dat you carss to yer 'bout is
most astonishing, charming well, 'cept, as I say, de ole colonel;

and de fire in he foot makes him bile ober ebbry now and den,
and it's mighty hard for a 'spectable gentleman to stan' him
when he's in his ondecent passion! And how's you, Mass
Willie? How's you bin? Lord delibber me, but it does seem
as ef you was nebber to be done growing. You're a foot taller,
I'm a-t'inking, then when you went off in de spring!”

And Ben the Bowlegged wheeled the young major about,
making due presentation of him to every point of the compass,
until he had satisfied himself that, in growing taller, his young
master had lost nothing of that symmetry which had rendered
him perfect in his eyes before.

“Well, Ben; as well as a man can be who has the appetite of
forty Indians always, and not often the meal to satisfy one
sufficiently.”

“Lawd bless you, dat's wha' I says to myse'f, ebbry time I
sets down to my dinner — I says, Lawd, ef I could only gee
Mass Willie a bit ob dis bacon, or a plate ob dis rice, or a wing
ob dis chicken, or a dozen ob dese eggs, or a bowl ob dis coffee,
or somet'ing or udder, sich as I has a-hissing and a-smoking
before me; wha' ebber I hab for my own eating dat day!”

“Thank you for your good intentions, Ben, and I'm sure
your dinner would be a thousand times far more grateful than
what we commonly get — the best of us — in camp.”

“Lean beef — carrion, I may call um — skin and bone;
sometimes no beef at all — not'ing better dan bile hom'ny—”

“Ay, indeed, Benny; and sometimes horse-beef, old fellow,
such as my father had to eat, when you went with him, in the
old Cherokee war.”

“It's a most onmassiful life, Mass Willie, to be a sodger;
and I tinks ob de bad libing for you ebbry day. But you'll
hab somet'ing better to-day, please God! and ebbry day you
hab for stay wid us.”

“Not long, Ben! Camp duties can't suffer me to delay even
where the beef is excellent; and you well know that so long as
this war lasts, I am not likely to be met, coming home, with my
father's smiles.”

“Da's true, Mass Willie,” answered the other with a sigh.
“De ole gentleman's jest as foolish and onsensible as ebber;
and jest now, wid de debbil and all-fire, burning in his foot,

and de troubles we'be been habing wid some of dese outlying
rascals in de swamp — butchering de cattle, and robbing de
poultry-yard — he's biling ober, I may say, wid all sort ob onreasonable
vexations.”

“What! have the tories been at work upon your cattle,
Ben?”

“Well, sir, I'm a-tinking dat it's as much whigs as tories.
When cattle-tieving's the business, and henroost-robbing,
there ain't much difference, I'm a-tinking, among sodgers.
Dey're all alike — whigs and tories, king's men and people's
men; de fac' is, Mass Willie, de very sight ob a fat steer, or
a clebber young heifer, naterally, I may say, turns an honest
sodger into a tief!”

“Take care, Ben. If the soldier should hear you uttering
any such sentiments?”

“I mus' uttar dem, Mass Willie, kaise, you see, it's de onnateral,
Christian trute, I'm a-telling. Ebbry ole sodger is
bound to tief chickens and cattle when de chaince is good for
clearing out a henroost, or knocking a young steer on de head.
Dey've been at dis work yer at de Barony, a leetle too often
ob late to please de ole maussa; and he all but bile ober when
he hears ob it, and feels de fire in his foot dat keeps him from
mounting horse, and dribing de swamp for de rapscallions.”

“And he curses the whigs accordingly?”

“Dat he does! He says it's all owing to de friends of liberty.
Den he cusses de liberty, and den he grunts and says —
`And my own son! my own son! He to take up arms ag'in
his king and country, to help dese rapscallions!' But he
don't cuss you, Mass Willie — no! no! he don't zackly do dat!”

“I am grateful for that, Benny — very grateful; but I'm
afraid he comes monstrous nigh to doing so, when he's boiling
over.”

“Well, I reckon he would, Willie Sinclair — I reckon he
would, ef 'twan't for an angel, dat just den light down close by
his shoulder, and puts he arms round he neck, and looks inter
he face jest so, with sich a smiling and sich a weeping in her
eyes, and sich sweet words upon her mouth, and kisses too, dat
his heart gets weakly and saft, and she stops de cusses on his
lips; and he stops biling over, and forgits de British and de

whigs and de tories — forgits everyting but jest what de
blessed white angel happens to say so saftly in his ears. Ah!
Mass Willie, dat's a bressed critter, to be a woman, dat same
gal child, Carrie Sinclair.”

“Dear Carrie!” exclaimed the major of dragoons, while he
involuntarily grasped the old negro's hand; and a silent tear
suddenly gathered in his eye, bright and clear, as a pearl of
ocean thrown up by the billows, and left upon the beaten shore
in the smiles of an evening sunset. “Dear Carrie!” murmured
the youth. “But you remind me, Benny. I must hurry to her
and to the house, Benny, before the day opens broadly upon
us.”

“It's about day-breaking now, Mass Willie.”

“Then you must stir yourself, old fellow, and see to my horse,
and see to the bundles on his back. Put away the sack of powder
and the bullets in the old hiding-place, and see that you hide
my horse also. He must not go into the stables. In fact, it
must not be known on the plantation that I am here. I must
see Carrie; but I do not know that I shall let my father suspect
my presence. I am pursued, Benny, and the plantation is even
now under the close watch of `Hell-fire Dick,' and a portion of
his gang.”

“Hell-fire Dick! He 'bout yer ag'in! Da's de same rapscallion
dat's been feeding 'pon we cattle. I sure ob it!”

“Yes! likely enough. He is certainly here. I have seen
him this night. I have also found out that scamp, Pete Blodgit
—”

“Enty I bin always tell you, Pete Blodgit's a great rapscallion,
and no better dan a scamp?”

“I know it now! But I have laid him bare. The scoundrel
would have taken my life, could he have mustered courage for
it.”

“He no hab de heart, Mass Willie. He's a coward an' a
rapscallion. Ha! le' me put finger on 'em.”

“We may have a chance, Benny, to put the whole hand upon
him, and a few other of these rascals. They were all on my
track to-night; and are now harboring about the avenue, and
skirting the lower woods. They, no doubt, believe me to be
still below, and are watching there for my approach. I took

the opposite woods, got above the Barony, and came down by
Henderson's old cattle-pen. It is my plan now, to lie still, not
to be seen or suspected as having reached the Barony; for we
know not what these rascals would have the audacity to attempt,
now that they believe that all the troops, British and American,
are above at Ninety-Six. If they were sure of my presence here,
they might even attempt to sack the Barony, since they know
that I have a considerable sum of money with me.”

“Wha! dey 'tack de Barony? Le' 'em try! Enty ole
maussa yer, and you yer, and me yer; and der's some sebben
or eight ob we brack people dat ain't 'f'aid [afraid] ob de music
when de bullets fly; and day will fight like bressed varmints,
jest whenebber maussa say de wurd. Den we hab gun and
pistol and swode; and enty you hab powder and bullet on de
hoss? Le' me gone for 'em right away!”

“Do so, Benny; but first go and waken up little Peter, and
let him open the house-door to me, so that I can't be kept waiting
outside where I may be seen. And bring Tiger with you,
so that I may renew my acquaintance with him here, lest he
should fly out upon me, and alarm the neighborhood with his
barking.”

“I gone, maussa.”

Soon, the faithful negro reappeared, bringing the powerful
watchdog, an animal with a cross of the English bull upon the
Irish wolf-dog, broad bullet-head, lion neck, ample chest, short,
well-sinewed legs, and a short hair that lay smooth, and always
looking moist, close to his skin. The fierce beast leaped to the
caresses of his young master, with a loving whine, knowing him
at a glance. Together, the two, the major and the dog, stole
away to the dwelling, while Ben proceeded to put his young
master's horse, and the several burdens which he bore, in several
places of security.