e in some more
hopeful case; and, notwithstanding the delay in starting, could make far
better speed.

For all the good it did I might have spared my pains and saved my
breath. Jennifer broke me in the midst, crying out that I was even now
killing the precious minutes; and so our ill-starred venture had its
launching in the frenzied haste that seldom makes for speed. One small
concession I wrung out of his impatience--this with the help of Yeates
and the Catawba. We went back to the breakfast camp, rekindled the fire,
and cooked what we could keep and carry of the venison.

In spite of this delay it was yet early in the forenoon of that
memorable Sunday, the twentieth of August, when we set our faces
southward and took up the line of march to the ford of the ambushment.
By now the sky was wholly overcast, and the wind was blowing fresher in
the tree-tops; but though as yet the storm held off, the air was the
cooler for the threatened rain and this was truly a blessing, since the
old hunter put us keen upon our mettle to keep pace with him.

We marched in Indian file, Ephraim Yeates in the lead, Uncanoola at his
heels, and the two of us heavier-footed ones bringing up the rear.
Knowing the wooded wilderness by length and breadth, the old man held on
through thick and thin, straight as an arrow to the mark; and so we had
never a sight of the road again till we came out upon it suddenly at the
ford of violence.

Here I should have been in despair for the lack of any intelligible hint
to point the way; and I think not even Jennifer, with all his woodcraft,
could have read the record of the onfall as Yeates and the Catawba did.
But for all the overlapping tangle of moccasin and hoof prints neither
of these men of the forest was at fault, though ten minutes later even
their skill must have been baffled, inasmuch as the first few spitting
raindrops were pattering in the tree-tops when we came upon the ground.

"That's jest about what I was most afeard of," said the borderer, with a
hasty glance skyward. "Down on your hunkers, Chief, and help me read
this sign afore the good Lord takes to sending His rain on the jest and
the unjest," and therewith these two fell to quartering all the ground
like trained dogs nosing for a scent.

We stood aside and watched them, Richard and I, realizing that we were
of small account and should be until, perchance, it should come to the
laying on of hearty blows. After the closest scrutiny,