ng as one who pits
duty against inclination.

"'Tis our cursed luck!" he gloomed. Then he swore it out by length and
breadth, and, when the air was cleared, let me have what was in his
mind.

"After all, 'tis like enough we should find Appleby house deserted.
Gilbert Stair will cling to Lord Cornwallis's coat-skirt as long as he
can for sheer safety's sake. At all events, our business must wait; the
country's weal comes first." Then to the Indian: "If we can make the
beasts take the water, will you ferry us across, Chief?"

The Catawba nodded, and made the nod good by setting us dry-shod on the
farther bank of the brown flood. By the time we had the horses rubbed
down and resaddled 'twas twilight in the open and night dark in the
wood; but we were on our own ground and knew every by-path through the
forest.

So, when we had sent the Indian back to carry news of us to General
Davidson at the lower ford, and to advertise him of our purpose, we
mounted to begin a scouting jaunt, keeping to the wood paths and bearing
cautiously northward toward the enemy's camp at Forney's plantation.

At times we were close upon the British sentries, with every nerve
strained tense for fight or flight; anon we would be making wide detours
through bog and fen, or beneath the black network of wet branches with
the rain-soaked leaf beds under foot to make the horses' treadings as
noiseless as a cat's.

None the less, in the fullness of time--'twas near about midnight as we
guessed it--we had our patience well rewarded. Hovering on the confines
of the camp we heard the muffled drum-tap of the reveille, and soon
there was the stir of an army making ready for the march.

"Which way will it be, north or south?" whispered Dick, when we had
dismounted to cloak the heads of the horses.

"We shall know shortly," said I; and truly, we did, being well-nigh
enveloped and ridden down by the fringe of light-horse deploying to
pioneer the way. When we had sheered off to let this skirmish cloud blow
by, Dick struck a spark into his tinder-box to have a sight of his
compass needle.

"South and by east," he announced; "that will mean Beattie's Ford, I
take it."

"Not unless they swim, horse and foot," I objected. "'Twill be
Macgowan's, more likely."

Having this uncertainty to resolve, we must hang upon the skirts of the
British advance till we could make sure, and this proved to be a most
perilous business. Yet by riding abreast of the moving