He looked up at me with a queer grimace on his boyish face.

“The devil! but you’re a cool hand, Captain Ireton!  Whatever you were in that coil at Appleby, you’ve led the spy’s long suit this time.  And I’m not sure whether I like you any the worse for it, if so be you must be a rebel.”  And with that, he gave me the sealed packet and asked what I would do with him.

His query set me thinking.  As for the two stunned troopers, I meant to turn them over to the old man for safe keeping; but I was loath to make it harder than need be for this good-natured youngster.  So I put him upon his honor.

“Do you know what this packet contains?” I asked.

He laughed.  “My Lord did not honor me with his confidence.  I was to follow you in to Major Ferguson’s camp, deliver the despatches, and vanish.”

“Good; then you need tell no lies.  When the Indian has fetched my horse, I shall ride to Ferguson’s camp, and you may ride with me.  I shall ask no more than this; that you do not fight again till you are exchanged; and that you will not tell Major Ferguson whose prisoner you are.  Do you accept the terms?”

“Gad!  I’d be a fool not to.  But what’s in the wind, Captain?  Surely you can tell me, now that I am safely out of the running.”

“You will know in a day or two; and in the meantime ignorance is your best safety.  You can tell Major Ferguson that you were waylaid on the road by a party of the enemy, and that you were paroled and fell in with me.”

He looked a little rueful, as a good soldier would, but was disposed to make the best of a bad bargain.

“Here’s my hand on it,” he said; and a little later we had dragged the two troopers to the cabin, where the old man became surety for their safe keeping, and were feeling our way cautiously westward at the heels of the Catawba who had taken his directions from our patriarch.

We pressed forward in silence through the shadowy labyrinth of the wood for a time, but at the crossing of a small runlet where we would stop to let the horses drink, Tybee burst out a-laughing.

“’Tis as good as a play,” he said.  “Three several times I’ve had to change my mind about you, Captain Ireton, and I’m not cock-sure I have your measure yet.  But I’ll say this:  if you’ve strung my Lord successfully, you’ll be the first to do it and come off alive in the end.”

“The end is not yet, my good friend; and I may not come off better than the others,” I rejoined.  And with that we fared on again till we could see the camp-fires of Ferguson’s little army twinkling between the tree trunks.

XXXVIII

IN WHICH WE FIND THE GUN-MAKER

As you may be sure, Major Patrick Ferguson was far too good a soldier to leave his camp unguarded on any side, and whilst we were yet a far cannon-shot from the glimmering fires a sentry’s challenge halted us.