But about four o’clock the weather lightened, and from the cock’s-comb on which we moved we looked down into the lower glens.  I saw that we had left the main flanks of the range behind us, and were now fairly on a cape which jutted out beyond the other ridges.  It behoved us now to go warily, and where the thickets grew thin we moved like hunters, in every hollow and crack that could shelter a man.  Ringan led, and led well, for he had not stalked the red deer on the braes of Breadalbane for nothing.  But no sign of life appeared in the green hollows on either hand, neither in the meadow spaces nor by the creeks of the growing streams.  The world was dead silent; not even a bird showed in the whole firmament.

Lower and lower we went, till the end of the ridge was before us, a slope which melted into the river plains.  A single shaft of bright sunshine broke from the clouds behind us, and showed the tumbled country of low downs and shallow vales which stretched to the Tidewater border.  I had a momentary gleam of hope, as sudden and transient as that ray of light.  We were almost out of the hills, and, that accomplished, we were most likely free of the Indian forces that gathered there.  I had come to share the Rappahannock men’s opinion about the Cherokees.  If we could escape the strange tribes from the west, I looked for no trouble at the hands of those common raiders.

The thicket ended with the ridge, and there was a quarter-mile of broken meadow before the forest began.  It was a queer place, that patch of green grass set like an arena for an audience on the mountain side.  A fine stream ran through it, coming down the glen on our right, and falling afterwards into a dark, woody ravine.  I mistrusted the look of it, for there was no cover, and ’twas in full view of the whole flanks of the hills.

Ringan, too, was disturbed.  “Twould be wiser like to wait for darkness before trying that bit,” he said.  “We’ll be terrible kenspeckle to the gentry we ken of.”

But I would not hear of delay.  Now that we were all but out of the hills I was mad to get forward.  I thought foolishly that every minute we delayed there we increased our peril, and I longed for the covering of the lowland forest.  Besides, I thought that by using some of the crinkles in the meadow we could be sheltered from any eyes on the slopes.

Ringan poked his head out of the covert and took a long gaze.  “The place seems empty enough, but I cannot like it.  Have you your pistols handy, Andrew?  I see what looks like an Indian track, and if we were to meet a brave or two, it would be a pity to let them betray us.”

I looked at my pistols to see if the damp woods had spoiled the priming.

“Well, here’s for fortune,” said Ringan, and we scrambled off the ridge, and plunged into the lush grasses of the meadow.

Had we kept our heads and crossed as prudently as we had made the morning’s journey, all might have been well.  But a madcap haste seemed to possess us.  We tore through the herbage as if we had been running a race in the yard of a peaceful manor.  The stream stayed us a little, for it could not be forded without a wetting, and I went in up to the waist.  As we scrambled up the far bank some impulse made me turn my head.