'Twas late in the afternoon of the last day of January when we set out together, Jennifer and I, from the camp of conference at Sherrard's Ford.

The military situation, lately so critical for us, had reached and passed one of its many subclimaxes. Morgan's little army, with its prisoners still safe in hand, was on its way northward to Charlottesville in Virginia, and only the officers remained behind to confer with General Greene.

For the others, Huger and Williams were hurrying up from Cheraw to meet the general at Salisbury; and General Davidson, with a regiment of North Carolina volunteers, was set to keep the fords of the Catawba.

As for the British commander's intendings, we had conflicting reports. Two days earlier, Lord Cornwallis had burned his heavy baggage at Ramsour's Mill, and so we had assurance that the pursuit was only delayed. But whether, when he should break his camp at Forney's plantation, he would go northward after Morgan and the prisoners, or cross the river at some nearhand ford to chase our main, none of our scouts could tell us.

We were guessing at this, Richard and I, as we jogged on together down the river road, and were agreed that could my Lord cross the flooded river without loss of time, his better chance would be to fall upon our main at Salisbury or thereabouts. But as to the possibility of his crossing, we fell apart.

"Lacking another drop of rain, we are safe for forty-eight hours yet," Dick would say, pointing to the brimming river rolling its brown flood at our right as we fared on. "And with two days' start we shall have him burning more than his camp wagons to overtake us."

"Have it so, if you will," said I, to end the argument. "But this I know: were Dan Morgan or General Greene, or you or I, in Lord Cornwallis's shoes, the two days would not be lost."

Jennifer laughed. "Leave the rest of us out, Sir Hannibal Ireton, and tell what you would do," he said, mocking me.

We were at that bend in the road where Jan Howart and his Tories had sought to waylay us in the cool gray dawn of a certain June morning when we were galloping this same road to keep my appointment with Sir Francis Falconnet. A huge rock makes a promontory in the stream just here, and I pointed to a water-worn cavity in it where the flood lapped in and out in gurgling eddies.

"You've been sharp to take me up on my forgetting of the landmarks, but there is one I've not forgot," said I. "One day, about the time you were getting yourself born, I was passing this way with my father and a company of the county gentlemen. 'Twas in the Seven Years' War, and the Cherokees were threatening us from the other side. The river was in flood as it is now; and I mind my father saying that when you could see that hole in the rock, Macgowan's Ford would be no more than armpit deep."

"So?" said Richard; "then it behooves us to—" He stopped in mid sentence, drew rein and shifted his sword hilt to the front.

"What is it?" I asked.

For reply he pointed me to a canoe half hidden in the bushes where roadside and river-edge came together.

I laughed. "An empty pirogue. Shall we charge and run it through?"

"Hist!" said he; "that canoe was afloat a minute since. Mark the paddle—'tis dripping yet."

As he spoke an Indian stood up in the bushes beside the pirogue, holding out his empty hands in token of amity. We rode up and were presently shaking hands with our old-time ally, the Catawba.

"How!" said he; "heap how! Chief Harris glad; wah! Make think have to go to Sal'bury to find Captain Long-knife and Captain Jennif'. Heap much glad!"

"Chief Harris?" I queried. "Who may he be?"

The Catawba drew himself up and drummed upon his breast.

"Chief Harris here," he answered, proudly. "The Great War Chief," by which we understood he meant General Greene, "say all Catawba take war-path 'gainst redcoat; make Uncanoola headman; give um new name. Wah!"

At this we shook hands with him again, well pleased that our stanch ally should have recognition at the hands of the general. Then I would ask if he were on the way to raise his tribesmen to fight with us.

"Bimeby; no have time now; big thing over yonder," pointing across the river. "Manitou Cornwally fool Great War Chief, mebbe, hey?"

"How is that?" said Dick; and the query elicited a bit of news to make us prick our ears. The Catawba had been in the British camp at Forney's, posturing again as a Cherokee friendly to the king's side. Some sudden movement had been determined upon, though what it was to be he could not learn. At the end of his own resources he had crossed the river in a stolen pirogue to find and warn us.

"What say you, Dick?" I asked, when we had heard the Catawba through.

The lad was holding his lip in his hand and scowling as one who pits duty against inclination.

"'Tis our cursed luck!" he gloomed. Then he swore it out by length and breadth, and, when the air was cleared, let me have what was in his mind.

"After all, 'tis like enough we should find Appleby house deserted. Gilbert Stair will cling to Lord Cornwallis's coat-skirt as long as he can for sheer safety's sake. At all events, our business must wait; the country's weal comes first." Then to the Indian: "If we can make the beasts take the water, will you ferry us across, Chief?"

The Catawba nodded, and made the nod good by setting us dry-shod on the farther bank of the brown flood. By the time we had the horses rubbed down and resaddled 'twas twilight in the open and night dark in the wood; but we were on our own ground and knew every by-path through the forest.

So, when we had sent the Indian back to carry news of us to General Davidson at the lower ford, and to advertise him of our purpose, we mounted to begin a scouting jaunt, keeping to the wood paths and bearing cautiously northward toward the enemy's camp at Forney's plantation.

At times we were close upon the British sentries, with every nerve strained tense for fight or flight; anon we would be making wide detours through bog and fen, or beneath the black network of wet branches with the rain-soaked leaf beds under foot to make the horses' treadings as noiseless as a cat's.

None the less, in the fullness of time—'twas near about midnight as we guessed it—we had our patience well rewarded. Hovering on the confines of the camp we heard the muffled drum-tap of the reveille, and soon there was the stir of an army making ready for the march.

"Which way will it be, north or south?" whispered Dick, when we had dismounted to cloak the heads of the horses.

"We shall know shortly," said I; and truly, we did, being well-nigh enveloped and ridden down by the fringe of light-horse deploying to pioneer the way. When we had sheered off to let this skirmish cloud blow by, Dick struck a spark into his tinder-box to have a sight of his compass needle.

"South and by east," he announced; "that will mean Beattie's Ford, I take it."

"Not unless they swim, horse and foot," I objected. "'Twill be Macgowan's, more likely."

Having this uncertainty to resolve, we must hang upon the skirts of the British advance till we could make sure, and this proved to be a most perilous business. Yet by riding abreast of the moving main we did resolve the uncertainty; heard the orders passed from man to man, and later saw a small feinting detachment split off to take the road for Beattie's, whilst the main body held on for Macgowan's; all this before we were discovered in the gloaming of the dawn by some of Tarleton's men.

Then, I promise you, my dears, it was neck or nothing, with the devil to take the hindmost. Away we sped toward the near-by river, spurring our wearied beasts as men who ride for life, with a dozen troopers so close upon us that when I glanced over my shoulder the foremost of the redcoat riders was having his face well bespattered with the mud from my horse's heels.

'Twas touch and go, but happily, as I have said, the river was at hand. We came to the high bank some hundred yards above the fording place, and lacking Dick's example to shame me to the braver course, I fear I should have recoiled at the brink. But when the lad sent his horse without the missing of a bound far out over the eddying flood, I shook the reins on the sorrel's neck, gave him the word and shut my eyes.

After all, it was nothing worse than a cold plunge, with a few pistol bullets to spatter harmlessly around us when we came up for air. Moreover, there were the camp-fires of Davidson's men on the farther bank to encourage us; and so swimming and wading by turns we got across in time to give the alarum.

As you would guess, there was a mighty stir on our side of the river when we had splashed ashore and got our news well born. As it turned out, General Davidson's main camp was a good half-mile back from the river in one of the outfields of Appleby Hundred. So it chanced there were upon the spot only brave Joe Graham and his fifty riflemen to dispute the passage of an army.

What was done at Macgowan's Ford in the gray of the morning of February first, 1781, has become a page in our history. But I protest that not any of the chroniclers do even-handed justice to the little band of patriot riflemen doing their utmost to hold a hundred-to-one outnumbering host in check.

'Twas a fine sight, be the onlooker Whig or Tory. The Guards, led by the fiery Irishman, O'Hara, took the water first, the men crowding shoulder to shoulder to brace against the sweep of the current which, on the western side of the stream, was little less than a mill-tail for swiftness. After them came the foot and horse in solid squares, and always with more to follow. None the less, our little handful did not blanch; and when the Guards in midstream held straight across instead of bearing to the right as the ford ran, a shout went up on our side and the fifty hastened up from the ford-head as one man to face the enemy squarely.

Now it was that the brown-barreled rifles began to crack and spit fire; and I do think if we had had our other two hundred and fifty out of that back field on the manor lands, we might at least have made the wading redcoats hurry a little. Indeed, as it was, the van of the Guards broke here and there, and we could hear O'Hara berating his men as only a battle-mad Irishman can, with blarneyings and curses intermingled.

Having no firearms save our wetted pistols, Jennifer and I crouched in cover, waiting to do what two swordsmen might when the blade's length should bridge the fast-narrowing distance between us and the advancing host.

'Twas in this little interval of forced inaction that we heard a most familiar voice issuing from a clump of holly just below our covert; a voice lifted now in fervent prayer and again in Scriptural anathema on the foe.

"'Let God arise and let His inimies be scattered.... Let them be as the chaff upon a threshing-floor'—"

The sharp crack of the old borderer's rifle filled the momentary pause, and a British officer in a colonel's uniform swayed drunkenly in his saddle and plunged headlong in the stream.

"'Let them be as the children of Amalek before the Mighty One of Israel: make them and their princes like Oreb and Zeeb; yea, make all their princes like as Zebah and Zalmunna.... O my God, make them like unto a wheel, and as the stubble before the wind; like as the fire that burneth up the wood, and as the flame that consumeth the mountains.'"

Crack! went the long-barreled piece again, and again an officer hallooing on his floundering battalion bent to his saddle horn and slipped into the turbid flood.

My gorge rose. This picking off of officers has always seemed to me the savagest of war's barbarities. How Richard divined my thought and purpose, I know not; but when I would have slipped down to Yeates's holly bush he laid a detaining hand on my arm.

"Let be," he said; "'tis murder, if you like, but all war is that. When old Eph's turn comes, they will kill him as relentlessly as he is killing them."

By this time the British vanguard was storming ashore through the shallows below the tree fringe which served as cover for Graham's men, and the king's muskets, silent hitherto, began to roar and belch by platoon and volley fire. Jennifer craned his neck and took a swift view of the situation.

"By the Lord Harry!" he cried, "'tis high time Joe Graham was getting his lads in order for a foot race. Once those fellows come ashore they'll play hare and hounds with us to the king's taste. Keep your eye on the nags, Jack. It may chance us to do what two men can to cover a belated retreat."

We had tethered our horses in a thicket of scrub oak where they would be out of bullet-reach until the enemy gained the bank. As I looked to make sure of them, the sorrel gave a shrill neigh to welcome the pounding of hoofs on the Appleby road. I made sure this would be General Davidson bringing in the reserves; and so, indeed, it was; but he came too late. O'Hara's men were already climbing the bank; and Joe Graham was rallying his little company for flight in the face of an onset that made the tree fringe sing with musket balls.

"'Tis our cue to run away!" Dick shouted, dragging me to my feet. "To the horses!"

But now we were too late. Davidson's men were between us and the scrub oak thicket, and we must wait till the column swept by.

Dick swore fervently and put his face to the foe and his back to a tree. Whereupon I dragged him down as promptly as he had just now dragged me up, telling him his broadsword would make but a poor shift parrying musket-balls.

What followed after was over and done with in a dozen fluttering heart-beats. Seeing the case was desperate, General Davidson gathered Graham's fifty into his flying column, flogged his rear into the retreat, and was pitched out of his saddle by a Tory rifle-bullet whilst he was doing it. And when the way to our horses was clear of the galloping Carolinians, and we would have run to mount and ride after them, the swarming redcoat van was upon us.

"Up with you and out of this!" cried Jennifer, setting me the example. "We must e'en gallop as we can. Quick, man!"

But in the gathering and the retreat our old sharpshooter under his holly bush had been left behind; and now we heard him again, chanting his terrible imprecations on the enemy.

Dick saw the meaning in my look, and together we pounced to drag the old man out of hiding. When we burst down upon him, Yeates had his piece to his face and was drawing a bead on a stout man in cocked hat and plain regimentals whose horse was curveting and sidling in the nearer shallows; no less a figure, in truth, than my Lord Cornwallis himself, cheering his men on to the attack.

We had scarce made out the old hunter's target when the rifle spat fire, the curveting charger reared in its death plunge, and the British commander-in-chief, unhurt, as it seemed, was dragged from the entanglement of his stirrups by his aides.

The old marksman sprang up in a fury of wrath. "Dad blast ye for a pair of aim-sp'ilin'—"

A roar of musketry cut the rebuke in half, and a storm of bullets smote through the branches overhead. A falling bough knocked my hat off, and I stooped to recover it. When I rose, Dick was clipping the old man tightly in his arms. Yeates's belt was cut, and a little oozing well-spring of red was slowly soaking the fringe of his hunting-shirt.

"Ease me down, Cap'n Dick; ease me down. The old man's done for, this time, ez I allow—spang in the innards. Ease me down and get off for yerselves, if so be ye can, im—me—jit—"

The wagging jaw dropped and the keen old eyes went dim and sightless. Dick's oath was more a sob than an imprecation; and now it was I who said: "Come on—the living before the dead!" and so we made the well-nigh hopeless dash for the horses.

How we rode free out of that hurly-burly at the ford-head you must figure for yourselves, if you can. The men of the British vanguard were all about us when we got to the scrub oak thicket and mounted, but no one of them raised a hand to stay us. I have thought since that mayhap they took us for a pair of their own Tory allies who were not above wearing the stolen uniforms of the dead. Be that as it may, we rode away unhindered, Dick in all the bravery of his captain's slashings, and I in light-horse buff and blue, taking the road toward the manor house because that was the only one open to us, and ambling leisurely till we were beyond the sight and sound of the victors at the ford.

But once at large, we put spurs to our horses in true ritter fashion; and we had galloped half way to Appleby house before Dick said:

"Now we are well out of that, what next? We can not go to Margery with the whole British army at our heels."

"Nay, but we shall, if only for a short half-hour," I asserted. Then, as once before, I gave him my best bow. "For the last time, it may be, let me play the lord of the manor. You are very welcome to my father's demesne, Richard, and to all of its holdings."

"All?" said he, giving me a quick eye-shot as we pressed on side by side.

"Yes, all," said I; and I meant it in good faith. He should have the lady, too; that precious holding of the old manse without whom my father's acres would be but a bauble to be lost or won indifferently.

"Then you do not love Madge more?" he queried, his eye kindling.

"Nay, I did not say that. But I did say the other; that you should have the house and all its holdings."

We were cantering up the oak-sentried avenue to that door which Gilbert Stair had once sought to keep against us with his bell-mouthed blunderbuss. There was no sign of any living thing about the place; and when we had no answer to our sword-hilt knockings on the door, the lad turned upon me with a flash of anger in his eyes and his lip a-curl.

"You knew full well what you were promising, John Ireton!" he said. "She is not here."