“Lord, captain,” said the Kentuckian, “I hoped you would have been for taking a brush with us; and it war my idea to send a messenger after your party, in hopes your men would join us in the rusty.  Whar will they have such another chance?  A thousand Injuns ready cut and dried for killing!  Lord, what a fool I war for not setting more store by that tale of Nathan Slaughter’s!  I never knowed the brute to lie in such a case; for, as he is always ramping about the woods, he’s as good as a paid scout.  Howsomever, the crittur did’nt speak on his own knowledge; and that infarnal Stackpole was just ripe from the North side.  But, I say, captain, if your men will fight, just tote ’em back, stow away the women behind the logs here, and march your guns after me; and, if thar’s half the number of red niggurs they speak of to be found, you shall see an affa’r of a skrimmage that will be good for your wholesome,—­you will, by the etarnal!”

“If the men are of that mind,” said Roland, gallantly, “I am not the one to balk them.  I will, at least, see whither their inclinations tend; and that the matter may the sooner be decided, I will set out without delay.”

“And we who war to escort you, captain,” said the Kentuckian, with some embarrassment:  “you’re a soldier, captain, and you see the case!”

“I do; I have no desire to weaken your force; and, I trust, no protection is needed.”

“Not an iota; the road is as safe as the furrow of a Virginnee corn-field,—­at least till you strike the lower Forks; and thar I’ve heard of no rampaging since last summer:  I’ll indamnify you against all loss and mischief,—­I will, if it war on my salvation!”

“If you could but spare me a single guide,” said Forrester.

“Whar’s the use, captain?  The road is as broad and el’ar as a turnpike in the Old Dominion; it leads you, chock up, right on the Upper Ford, whar thar’s safe passage at any moment:  but, I reckon, the rains will make it look a little wrathy a while, and so fetch your people to a stand-still.  But it’s a pot soon full and soon empty, and it will be low enough in the morning.”

“The Upper Ford?” said Roland, his dream, for so he esteemed it, recurring to his mind:  “is there then a Lower Ford?”

“Ay,” replied Bruce; “but thar’s no passing it in the freshes; and besides, the place has a bad name.  It war thar old John Ashburn pitched his Station, in ’78; but the savages made murdering work of him, taking every scalp in the company; and so it makes one sad-like to pass thar, and the more partickelarly that it’s all natteral fine ground for an ambush.  You’ll see the road, when you’re six mile deep in the forest, turning off to the right, under a shivered beech-tree.  You are then four miles from the river, or tharabouts, and just that distance, I reckon, from your company.  No, captain,” he repeated, “the road is wide and open, and a guide war mere lumber on your hands.”