e of failure by two. We may work
together as the opportunity offers, but once within the lines we must
pass as strangers to each other, or at most as chance acquaintances of
the road."

"Good," said he; and then his jaw dropped. "But what if one of us be
taken? Never ask me to stand by stranger-wise and see you hanged, Jack!"

"I shall both ask it and promise to do the same by you. Your hand on it
before we go a step farther, if you please."

"'Tis out of all reason," he demurred.

"'Tis the only reasonable course. Bethink you, this is no knight-errant
venture; we are two of Dan Morgan's soldiers bent upon doing a thing
most needful for the welfare of the country and its cause. 'Tis a duty
higher than any obligation friendship lays on Richard Jennifer or John
Ireton."

At this he yielded the point, though I could see that the proposal
jumped little with the promptings of his generous heart.

"'Tis a scurvy trap you have set for me," he grumbled. "The risk is
chiefly yours, and you know it. You are known to Lord Cornwallis, and to
God knows how many more of them, and belike--"

The interruption came in the shape of a troop of redcoat horsemen
galloping in the road to meet us, and we were shortly surrounded and put
sharply to the question. We answered each for himself. Dick was a
loyalist from Yorkville way, eager to be set in arms against the bandit
Daniel Morgan. I was a refugee from "hornets'-nest" Mecklenburg, also
bent upon revenge.

The troop officer passed us on, something doubting, as I suspected. But
we were riding in the right direction, and he was unwilling to clog
himself with a pair of plain country gentlemen held in leash as
prisoners.

A few miles farther down the road the same brace of lies got us safely
through the loosely drawn vedette line, and by evening we were in sight
of our goal.

Viewing it from the rising ground of approach, Winnsborough appeared
less as a town than as a partly fortified camp. The few houses of the
village were lost in the field of tents, huts and troop shelters, and
measuring by the spread of these, it would seem that my Lord
Cornwallis's army had been considerably augmented since I had last seen
it in Charlotte. I spoke of this, but Dick was intent upon the business
of the moment.

"Aye; there are enough of them, God knows. But tell me, Jack--I'm new to
this game--what's to do first when we are among them?"

I laughed at him. "You are my troop commander, Captain