you may be sure that richard jennifer's bitter reproachings came home to me in sharpest fashion, the more since now i saw how we had lost our chance by neglecting the commonest precautions. having determined to attack, the merest novice of a general would have moved his forces to the nearest point; would have had his scouts search out the ford beforehand; and, above all, would never have delayed the blow beyond the earliest moment of the enemy's unwatchfulness.

so now, when all was lost, i fell to kneading out this sodden dough of afterwit with ephraim yeates; but when i sought to carry off the blame as mine by right, the old borderer would not give me leave.

"fair and easy, cap'n john; fair and easy," he protested. "let's give that old sarpent, which is the devil and satan, his dues. ez i allow, there was the whole enduring passel of us to ricollact all them things. to be sure, we had our warnings, mistrusting all along that this here dad-blame' hoss-captain had his finger in the pie. but, lawzee! we had ne'er a man o' god 'mongst us to rise up and prophesy what was a-going to happen if we didn't get up and scratch gravel immejitly, if not sooner; though i won't deny that cap'n dick did try his hand that-away."

"true; and i would now we had listened to him," said i, gloomily enough. "we have lost our chance, and god knows if we shall ever have another. falconnet must have half a hundred men, red and white, in the powder train; and by this time he has learned from the indian who reconnoitered us on the mountain that we are within striking distance. with the enemy forewarned, as he is, we might as well try to cut the women out of my lord cornwallis's headquarters."

the old man chuckled his dry little laugh, though what food for merriment he could find in the hopeless prospect was more than i could understand.

"ho! ho! cap'n john; i reckon ez how ye're a-taking that word from yonder down-hearted boy of our'n. wait a spell till ye're ez old ez i be; then you'll never say die till ye're plumb dead."

now, truly, though i was dismally disheartened, i could reassure him on the point of perseverance. 'tis an ireton failing to lose heart and hope when the skies are dark; but this is counterbalanced in some of us by a certain quality of unreasoning persistence which will go on running long after the race is well lost. my father had this stubborn virtue to the full; and so had that old ironside ireton from whom we are descended.

"that's the kind o' talk!" was the old man's comment. "now we'll set to work in sure-enough arnest. ez i said a spell back, my stummick is crying cupboard till i can't make out to hear my brain a-sizzling. maybe you took notice o' me a-praying down yonder that the good lord'd vouchsafe to give us scalps and provender. for our onfaithfulness he's seed fit to withhold the one; but maybe we'll find a raven 'r two, or a widder's mite 'r meal-bar'l, somewheres in this howling wilderness, yit."

so saying, he summoned the catawba with a low whistle, and when uncanoola joined us, told him to stay with jennifer whilst we should make another effort to find the ford.

"there's nobody like an injun for a nuss when a man's chin-deep into trouble," quoth this wise old woodsman, when we were feeling our way cautiously along the margin of the swift little river. "if cap'n dick rips and tears and pulls the grass up by the roots, the chief'll only say, 'wah!' if he sits up and cusses till he's black in the face, the chief'll say, 'ugh!' and that's just about all a man hankers for when his sore's a-running in the night season, and all thy waters have gone over his head. selah!"

now you are to remember the sky was overcast and the night was pitchy dark, and how the old borderer could read a sign of any sort was far beyond my comprehension. yet when we had gone a scant half-mile along the river brink he stopped short, sniffed the air and stooped to feel and grope on the ground like a blind man seeking for something he had lost.

"right about here-away is where they made out to cross," he announced; "the whole enduring passel of 'em, ez i reckon—our seven varmints and the hoss-captain's powder train. give me the heft o' your shoulder till we take the water and projec' 'round a spell on t'other side."

we squared ourselves, wholly by the sense of touch, with the river's edge, locked arms for the better bracing against the swift current, and so essayed the ford. it was no more than thigh deep, and though the water lashed and foamed over the shoal like a torrent in flood, there was a clean bottom and good footing. once safe across, we turned our faces down-stream, and in a little time came to the deserted glade with the embers of the kidnappers' fire glowing dully in the midst.

here a sign of some later visitants than falconnet's horsemen set us warily on our guard. the tepee-lodge of dressed skins, which had been left undisturbed by the sham rescuers, had vanished.

"umph! the redskins have been back to make sure o' what they left behind," said yeates, in a whisper. "i jing! that's jest the one thing i was a-hoping they'd forget to do. i reckon ez how that spiles our last living chance o' finding anything that mought help slack off on the belly-pinch."

so he said, but for this once his wisdom was at fault and tricky fortune favored us. when we had found the covert in the bushes where the two horses had been concealed we lighted upon a precious prize. 'twas a bag of parched corn in the grain; some share of the provision of the captive party overlooked by those who had returned to gather up the leavings.

with this treasure-trove we made all haste to rejoin our companions. and now behold what a miracle of reanimation may be wrought by a few handfuls of bread grain! in a trice the catawba had found a water-worn stone to serve for a mortar, and another for a pestle. these and the bag of corn were carried back to a sheltered ravine which we had crossed on our late advance; and here the indian fell to work to grind the corn into coarse meal, whilst yeates and i kindled a fire to heat the baking-stones.

in these preparations for the breaking of our long fast even richard bestirred himself to help; and when the cakes were baked and eaten—with what zestful sharp-sauce of appetite none but the famished may ever know—we were all in better heart, and better able to face the new and far more desperate plight in which our lack of common foresight had entangled us.

for now, since we knew the full measure of the peril menacing our dear lady, there was need for swift determination and a blow as swift and sure; a coup de main which should atone in one shrewd push for the sleeveless failure of the night. so we would grip hands around, even to the stolid indian, and swear a solemn oath to cut the women out or else to leave our bones to whiten in the forest wilderness.

you'll laugh at all these vowings and handstrikings, i dare say, and protest there was a deal of such fustian heroics in your doddering old chronicler's day.

mayhap there was. but, my dears, i would you might remember as you laugh that we of that simple-hearted elder time lived by some half-century nearer to that age of chivalry you dote on—in the story-books. also, i would you might mingle with your merriment a little of the saving grace of charity; letting it hint that, perchance, these you call "heroics" were but the free, untrammeled folk-speech of that sincerer natural heart which you have learned to silence and suppress. for i dare affirm that now, as then and always, there will be some spark of the promethean fire in every heart of man or maid, else this would indeed be a sorry world to live in.

so, as i say, we four struck hands anew on the desperate venture; and, after carefully burying the fire to the end that it might not betray us while we slept, we burrowed in the nearest leaf bed to snatch an hour or two of rest before the toils and hazards of the chase should begin afresh.

in the thick darkness following hard upon the douting of the fire, i saw not who my nearest bed-fellow might be. but ere i slept a hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice that i knew well, said: "are you waking yet, jack?"

i said i was; and at that my poor lad would blurt out all his sorrow and shame for the mad fit of despair that had set him on to rail and curse me.

"you will say with good reason that i am but a sorry jockey for a friend—to fly out at you like a madman as i did," he added, by way of fitting epilogue; and to this i gave him the answer he wished, bidding him never let a thought of it spoil him of the rest he needed.

"the debt of obligation and forgiveness is all upon the other side, as you will some day know, dick, my lad," said i, hovering, as a coward always will, upon the innuendo-edge of the confession he will never make.

he mistook the pointing of this protest, as he was bound to.

"never say that, jack. 'twould be a dog-in-the-manger trick in me to blame you for loving her. and since you speak of debts, i do protest i owe you somewhat, too. with so fair a chance to cut a clean swath in that fair-weather month at appleby hundred, another man would have left me scant gleanings in the field, i'll be bound; whereas—"

"damn you!" i broke in roughly, "will you never have done and go to sleep?" and so, taking surly harshness for a mask when my heart was nigh bursting with shame and grief, i turned my back and cut him off.