view if I went to the rise beyond the river.  So I had Paladin saddled, and crossed the ford, meaning to be back long ere sunset.  But the trees were so thick that I could see nothing from the first rise, and I tried to reach a green hill that looked near.  Then it began to grow dark, and I lost my head, and oh!  I don’t know where I wandered.  I thought every rustle in the bushes was a bear or a panther.  I feared the Indians, too, for they told me they were unsafe in this country.  All night long I tried to find a valley running east, but the moonlight deceived me, and I must have come farther away every hour.  When day came I tied Paladin to a tree and slept a little, and then I rode on to find a hill which would show me the lie of the land.  But it was very hot, and I was very weary.  And then you came, and those dreadful wild men.  And—­and——­” She broke down and wept piteously.

I comforted her as best I could, telling her that her troubles were over now, and that I should look after her.  “You might have met with us in the woods last night,” I said, “so you see you were not far from friends.”  But the truth was that her troubles were only beginning, and I was wretchedly anxious.  My impulse was to try to get her back to the Rappahannock; but, on putting this to Shalah, he shook his head.

“It is too late,” he said.  “If you seek certain death, go towards the Rappahannock.  She must come with us to the mountains.  The only safety is in the hill-tops.”

This seemed a mad saying.  To be safe from Indians we were to go into the heart of Indian country.  But Shalah expounded it.  The tribes, he said, dwelt only in the lower glens of the range, and never ventured to the summits, believing them to be holy land where a great manitou dwelt.  The Cherokees especially shunned the peaks.  If we could find a way clear to the top we might stay there in some security, till we learned the issue of the war, and could get word to our friends.  “Moreover,” he said, “we have yet to penetrate the secret of the hills.  That was the object of our quest, brother.”

Shalah was right, and I had forgotten all about it.  I could not suffer my care for Elspeth to prevent a work whose issue might mean the salvation of Virginia.  We had still to learn the truth about the massing of Indians in the mountains, of which the Cherokee raids were but scouting ventures.  The verse of Grey’s song came into my head:—­

     “I could not love thee, dear, so much,
      Loved I not Honour more.”

Besides—­and this was the best reason—­there was no other way.  We had gone too far to turn back, and, as our proverb says, “It is idle to swallow the cow and choke on the tail.”

I put it all to Elspeth.

She looked very scared.  “But my uncle will go mad if he does not find me.”

“It will be worse for him if he is never to find you again.  Shalah says it would be as easy to get you back over the Rappahannock as for a child to cross a winter torrent.  I don’t say it’s pleasant either way, but there’s a good hope of safety in the hills, and there’s none anywhere else.”