with that heavy-lidded right eye of his. "Explain your
rank and standing, if you please."

I told my story simply, and, as I thought, effectively; and had only
black looks for my pains.

"'Tis a strange tale, surely, sir,--too strange to be believable," quoth
Shelby. "You are a traitor, Captain Ireton--of the kind we need not
cumber ourselves with on a march."

"Who says that word of me?" I demanded, caring not much for that to
which his threat pointed, but something for my good name.

Shelby turned and beckoned to a man in the group behind him. "Stand out,
John Whittlesey," he directed; and I found myself face to face with that
rifleman of Colonel Davie's party who had been so fierce to hang me at
the fording of the Catawba.

This man gave his testimony briefly, telling but the bare truth. A week
earlier I had passed in Davie's camp for a true-blue patriot, this
though I was wearing a ragged British uniform at the moment. As for the
witness himself, he had misdoubted me all along, but the colonel had
trusted me and had sent me on some secret mission, the inwardness of
which he, John Whittlesey, had been unable to come at, though he
confessed that he had tried to worm it out of me before parting company
with me on the road to Charlotte.

I looked from one to another of my judges.

"If this be all, gentlemen, the man does but confirm my story," I said.

"It is not all," said Shelby. "Mr. Pengarvin, stand forth."

There was another stir in the backgrounding group and the pettifogger
edged his way into the circle, keeping well out of hand-reach of me. How
he had made shift to escape from Ferguson's men, to change sides, and to
turn up thus serenely in the ranks of the over-mountain men, I know not
to this day, nor ever shall know.

"Tell these gentlemen what you have told me," said Shelby, briefly; and
the factor, cool and collected now, rehearsed the undeniable facts: how
in Charlotte I had figured as a member of Lord Cornwallis's military
family; how I had carried my malignancy to the patriot cause to the
length of throwing a stanch friend to the commonwealth, to wit, one Owen
Pengarvin, into the common jail; how, as Lord Cornwallis's trusted
aide-de-camp, I had been sent with an express to Major Ferguson. Also,
he suggested that if I should be searched some proof of my duplicity
might be found upon me.

At this William Campbell nodded to two of his Virginians, and I was
searched forthwith, and that none to