gs to General Sumpter's
brigade. If you would go to his father's, only six miles from here, on
the upper road to Ninety-Six, you might hear where John was. But, may
be, you are afraid to go so near to the fort?"

"May be so," said Robinson, with a look of comic incredulity. "I know
the place, and I know the family, and, likely, John himself. It's a good
thought, Mary, for I want help now, more than I ever did in my life.
I'll start before daylight--for it won't do to let the sun shine upon
me, with Innis's Tories so nigh. So, if I am missed to-morrow morning,
let your father know how I come to be away."

"Tell John," said Mary, "I sent you to him. Mary Musgrove, remember."

"If I can't find John," replied Horse Shoe, "you're such a staunch
little petticoat sodger, that I'll, perhaps, come back and enlist you.
'Tisn't everywhere that we can find such valiant wenches. I wish some of
our men had a little of your courage; so, good night!"

The maiden now returned to the parlor, and Horse Shoe, under the
guidance of Christopher Shaw, found a comfortable place of deposit for
his hard-worked, though--as he would have Christopher believe--his
unfatigued frame. The sergeant, however, was a man not born to cares,
notwithstanding that his troubles were "as thick as the sparks that fly
upward," and it is a trivial fact in his history, that, on the present
occasion, he was not many seconds in bed before he was as sound asleep
as the trapped partridges, in the fairy tale, which, the eastern
chronicle records, fell into a deep sleep when roasting upon the spit,
and did not wake for a hundred years.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Now if you ask who gave the stroke
I cannot tell, so mote I thrive;
It was not given by man alive."--_Lay of the last Minstrel._

It was a little before daybreak on Sunday morning, the fifteenth of
August (a day rendered memorable by the exploit of Sumpter, who
captured, in the vicinity of Rocky Mount, a large quantity of military
stores, and a numerous escort, then on their way from Ninety-Six to
Camden), that James Curry was travelling in the neighborhood of the
Ennoree, some four miles distant from Musgrove's mill. He had a few
hours before left the garrison of Ninety-Six, and was now hieing with
all haste to Blackstock's on a mission of importance. The night had been
sultry, but the approach of the dawn had brought with it that refreshing
coolness which is always to be remarked in the half hou