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Whereat we all began likewise to listen, but I, for one, heard nothing till Yeates said: "A hoss; a-taking the back track like old Jehu the son of Nimshi was a-giving him the whip and spur," and then we all marked the distant drumming of hoofbeats. The old borderer sprang afoot, kicked the fire into the stream, and caught up his rifle. "Let's be a-moving," he said.
And then to Ephraim Yeates: "Will this rain kill the trail, think you?" He shook his head dubiously. "I dunno for sartain; 'twill make a heap o' differ' if they was anyways anxious to hide it. Ez it starts out, with the women a-hossback, 'tis plain enough for a blind man to lift on the run." "Then let us be at it," said I. "We can very well afford to let the mystery untangle itself as we go."
"I have the honour to know Mr. Wynne," said the officer. "We met at Lancaster when I was a prisoner in '76; in March, was it not? Mr. Wynne did me a most kind service, Montresor. I owe it to him that I came to know that loyal gentleman, Mr. Cope, and the Yeates people, who at least were loyal to me, I have not forgotten it, nor ever shall."
Still farther to the front, disposed as right and left wings of outliers, were Yeates and his fellow borderers and some sixty of the Georgians set to feel the enemy's approach; and in the reserve, posted well to the rear of the Marylanders and Virginians, was our own colonel's troop guarding the horses of the dismounted Georgians.
Yet when I would look away, through the vista to where the light of the great fire in the savanna camp played luridly upon the Indian lodges, or, nearer at hand, upon the savages gathering the wood to burn us with, this ghastly file of the dead drew me irresistibly, and I must needs pass the fearsome figures in review again, marking the staring eyes and unnatural postures, and the circular blood-black patches on the heads of the three peace-men whom Yeates and the Catawba had scalped.
Whilst we were about this last, Ephraim Yeates came loping down the avenue and through the gate to vault into the saddle of the first horse he could lay hands on; and so it was that we three took the northward road in the silver starlight, with the pursuit now in order again and in full cry behind us.
Satisfied of this, he came out, dripping, and with a monitory word to us to keep a sharp lookout, disappeared up-stream in the growing dusk, his long rifle at the trail, and his body bent to bring his keen old eyes the nearer to the ground. Ephraim Yeates was gone a full hour.
Hence he proposed that three of us should carry out the hunter's plan, leaving the fourth to take the hint given by the charred stick and the swimming ambush crew, and so penetrating to the valley by the stream cavern, be at hand to strike a blow for our dear lady's honor in case of need. "'Tis a thing to be done, and I am with you, Dick," said I. This before Ephraim Yeates could object.
"Falconnet!" said he, by way of tail-piece to the oath; and I nodded. "'Twas that there same hoss-captain, sure enough, ez I reckon," drawled Yeates. "Maybe one o' you two can tell what-all he mought be a-driving at." Jennifer shook his head, and I, too, was silent.
When he had gathered himself and set his limbs in order, Ephraim Yeates sat up and thrust out a claw-like hand. "Put it there, stranger," he said. "I reckon ez how that settles it. Old Eph Yeates'll share fair, powder and lead, parched corn and pan-meat with the man that can flop him that-away.
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