metal underneath.

They came singly and in couples, straggling like a routed band of
brigands; some loading their pieces as they ran. There was no hint of
soldier discipline, and they might have been leaderless for aught I saw
of deference to their captain. Indeed, at first I could not pick the
captain out by any sign, since all were clad in coarsest homespun and
well-worn leather, and all wore the long, fringed hunting shirt and
raccoon-skin cap of the free borderers.

Yet these were a handful of the men who had fought so stoutly against
the Tory odds at Ramsour's Mill, their captain being that Abram Forney
of whom you may read in the histories; and though they made no military
show, they lacked neither hardihood nor courage, of a certain
persevering sort.

"Ever come any closter to your Amen than that, stranger?" drawled one of
them, a grizzled borderer, lank, lean and weather-tanned, with a face
that might have been a leathern mask for any hint it gave of what went
on behind it. "I'll swear that little whip'-snap' officer cub had the
word 'Fire' sticking in his teeth when I gave him old Sukey's mouthful
o' lead to chaw on."

I said I had come as near my exit a time or two before, though always in
fair fight; and thereupon was whelmed in an avalanche of questions such
as only simple-hearted folk know how to ask.

When I had sufficiently accounted for myself, Captain Forney--he was the
limber-backed young fellow I had ridden behind--gripped my hand and
gave me a hearty welcome and congratulation.

"My father and yours were handfast friends, Captain Ireton. More than
that, I've heard my father say he owed yours somewhat on the score of
good turns. I'm master glad I've had a chance to even up a little;
though as for that, we should both thank the Indian." At which he looked
around as one who calls an eye-muster and marks a missing man. "Where is
the chief, Ephraim?"--this to the grizzled hunter who was methodically
reloading his long rifle.

"He's back yonder, gathering in the hair-crop, I reckon. Never you mind
about him, Cap'n. He'll turn up when he smells the meat a-cooking,
immejitly, _if_ not sooner."

Here, as I imagine, I looked all the questions that lacked answers; for
Captain Forney took it in hand to fit them out with explications.

"'Tis Uncanoola, the Catawba," he said; "one of the friendlies. He was
out a-scouting last night and came in an hour before daybreak with the
news that Colonel Tarleton