fortune seconded his hopes may be read in the story of the war.

CHAPTER L.

A BRITISH PARTISAN.

As the events of this history are confined to the duration of the Tory
Ascendency in South Carolina, it becomes me to prepare my reader for the
conclusion to which, doubtless much to his content, he will hear that we
are now hastening. We have reached a period which brings us to take
notice of certain important operations that were in progress upon the
frontier, and touching the details of which, to avoid prolixity, I must
refer to the graver chronicles of the times. It answers my present
purpose merely to apprise my reader that Colonel Clarke had lately
assembled his followers and marched to Augusta, where he had made an
attack upon Brown, but that almost at the moment when his dexterous and
valiant adversary had fallen within his grasp, a timely succor from Fort
Ninety-Six, under the command of Cruger, had forced him to abandon his
ground, and retreat towards the mountain districts of North Carolina. To
this, it is important to add that Ferguson had now recruited a
considerable army amongst the native Tories, and had moved to the small
frontier village of Gilbert-town, with a purpose to intercept Clarke,
and thus place him under the disadvantage of having a foe both in front
and rear.

The midnight seizure of Arthur Butler and his friends, whilst returning
from Ramsay's funeral, was effected by McAlpine, who happened at that
moment to be hastening, by a forced march, with a detachment of
newly-recruited cavalry from Ninety-Six, to strengthen Ferguson, and to
aid in what was expected to be the certain capture of the troublesome
Whig partisan.

As M'Alpine's purpose required despatch, he made but a short delay after
sunrise at Drummond's cabin, and then pushed forward with his prisoners
with all possible expedition. The route of his journey diverged, almost
at the spot of the capture, from the roads leading towards Musgrove's
Mill, and he consequently had but little chance to fall in with parties
who might communicate to him the nature of the accident which threw the
prisoners into his possession; whilst the prisoners themselves were
sufficiently discreet to conceal from him everything that might afford a
hint of Butler's previous condition.

The road lay through a rugged wilderness, and the distance to be
travelled, before the party could reach Gilbert-town, was something more
than sixty miles. It was, acco