s are faring forward on the road to Queensborough. They know
naught of my detention. Will you send a man to overtake them with a note
from me?"

The colonel indulged me in the most gentlemanly manner; and when my note
to Jennifer was despatched we sat together at the roots of a great oak
and I told him all that had befallen our little rescue party. He heard
me through patiently, and when the tale was ended was good enough to say
that I had earned a commission for my part in the affair. I laughed and
promptly shifted that burden to Ephraim Yeates's shoulders.

"The old hunter was our general, Colonel Davie. He did all of the
planning and the greater part of the executing. But for him and the
friendly Catawba, it would have gone hard with Jennifer and me."

"I fear you are over-modest, Captain," was all the reply I got; and then
my kindly host fell amuse. When he spoke again 'twas to give me a resume
in brief of the military operations North and South.

At the North, as his news ran, affairs remained as they had been, save
that now the French king had sent an army to supplement the fleet, and
Count Rochambeau and the allies were encamped on Rhode Island ready to
take the field.

In the South the distressful situation we had left behind us on that
August Sunday following the disastrous battle of Camden was but little
changed. General Gates, with the scantiest following, had hastened first
to Salisbury and later to Hillsborough, and had since been busy striving
to reassemble his scattered forces.

A few military partizans, like my host, had kept the field, doing what
the few might against the many to retard my Lord Cornwallis's northward
march; and a week earlier the colonel with his handful of mounted
riflemen had dared to oppose his entry into Charlotte.

"'Twas no more than a hint to his Lordship that we were not afraid of
him," said my doughty colonel. "You know the town, I take it?"

"Very well, indeed."

"Well, we had harassed him all the way from Blair's Mill, and 'twas
midnight when we reached Charlotte. There we determined to make a stand
and give him a taste of our mettle. We dismounted, took post behind the
stone wall of the court house green and under cover of the fences along
the road."

"Good! an ambush," said I.

"Hardly that, since they were looking to have resistance. Tarleton was
sick, and Major Hanger commanded the British van. He charged, and we
peppered them smartly. They tried it again, an