It was some time before the affrighted black could give us any connected account of what had befallen; and when at length the story was told, all save the principal fact of the carrying off of Mistress Margery and her maid was hazy¹ enough.  
Pruned² down to the simple statement of the fact, and with all the foolish terror chatterings weeded out, his news came to this: the party of homing revelers had been ambushed³ and waylaid⁴ at the fording of a creek⁶ some miles to the southward, and in the mellay the young mistress and her tire-woman had been captured.
 
So far as any actual witness of the eye went, the negro had seen nothing. There had been a volley fire from the thicket-belly of black darkness, a swarming⁷ attack to a chorus of Indian yells, shouts from the men, shrieks⁸ from the women, confusion worse confounded in which the newsbearer himself had been unhorsed and trodden under foot. After which he knew no more till some one—his master, as he thought—kicked him alive and bade him mount and ride post-haste on the backward track to Appleby Hundred, crying the news as he went that Mistress Margery Stair and her maid had been kidnapped by the Indians.
 
Pinned to the mark and questioned afresh, the slave could not affirm of his own knowledge that any one had been killed outright⁹. Pinned again, it proved to be only a guess of his that the one who had given him his orders was his master. In the darkness and confusion he could make sure of nothing; had made sure of nothing save his own frenzy¹⁰ of terror and the wording of the message he carried.
 
When we had quizzed him empty we hoisted¹¹ him upon his beast and sent him once more a-gallop¹² on the road to Appleby Hundred. That done, a hurried council of war was held in which we four fell apart, three against one. Jennifer was for instant pursuit, afoot and at top speed; and Ephraim Yeates and the Catawba, abandoning their own emprise apparently¹³ without a second thought, sided indifferently with him. For my part, I was for going back to prepare in decent order for a campaign which should promise something more hopeful than the probability of speedy exhaustion¹⁴, starvation and failure.
 
We grew hot upon it, Richard and I; he with a young lover's unrecking rashness, and I with an old campaigner's foresight¹⁵ to make me stubborn; and Ephraim Yeates and the Catawba drew aside and let us have it out. Dick argued angrily that time was the all-important item, and was not above taunting¹⁶ me bitterly, flinging the reproach of cold-blooded age in my face and swearing hotly that I knew not so much as the alphabet of love.
 
The taunts¹⁷ were passed in silence, since I would set them over against the irrevocable wrong I had done him, saying in my heart that nothing he could say or do should again tempt¹⁸ me to give place to the devil of jealous wrath¹⁹.
 
But when he would give me space I set the hopelessness of pursuit, all unprepared as we were, in plainest speech. The chase might well be a long one, and we were but scantily²⁰ armed and without provisions. The hunter's rifle must be our sole dependence²¹ for food, and in the summer heat we would be forced to kill daily. On the other hand, with horses, a bag of corn apiece, firearms and ammunition²², we should be in some more hopeful case; and, notwithstanding the delay in starting, could make far better speed.
 
For all the good it did I might have spared my pains and saved my breath. Jennifer broke me in the midst, crying out that I was even now killing²³ the precious minutes; and so our ill-starred venture had its launching in the frenzied²⁴ haste that seldom makes for speed. One small concession²⁵ I wrung²⁶ out of his impatience—this with the help of Yeates and the Catawba. We went back to the breakfast camp, rekindled²⁷ the fire, and cooked what we could keep and carry of the venison.
 
In spite of this delay it was yet early in the forenoon of that memorable²⁸ Sunday, the twentieth of August, when we set our faces southward and took up the line of march to the ford⁵ of the ambushment. By now the sky was wholly overcast²⁹, and the wind was blowing fresher in the tree-tops; but though as yet the storm held off, the air was the cooler for the threatened rain and this was truly a blessing³⁰, since the old hunter put us keen upon our mettle³¹ to keep pace with him.
 
We marched in Indian file, Ephraim Yeates in the lead, Uncanoola at his heels, and the two of us heavier-footed ones bringing up the rear. Knowing the wooded wilderness³² by length and breadth, the old man held on through thick and thin, straight as an arrow to the mark; and so we had never a sight of the road again till we came out upon it suddenly at the ford of violence.
 
Here I should have been in despair for the lack of any intelligible³³ hint to point the way; and I think not even Jennifer, with all his woodcraft, could have read the record of the onfall as Yeates and the Catawba did. But for all the overlapping³⁴ tangle³⁵ of moccasin and hoof³⁶ prints neither of these men of the forest was at fault, though ten minutes later even their skill must have been baffled, inasmuch as the first few spitting raindrops were pattering in the tree-tops when we came upon the ground.
 
"That's jest about what I was most afeard of," said the borderer, with a hasty glance skyward. "Down on your hunkers, Chief, and help me read this sign afore the good Lord takes to sending His rain on the jest and the unjest," and therewith these two fell to quartering all the ground like trained dogs nosing for a scent³⁷.
 
We stood aside and watched them, Richard and I, realizing that we were of small account and should be until, perchance, it should come to the laying on of hearty³⁸ blows. After the closest scrutiny³⁹, which took account of every broken twig⁴⁰ and trampled⁴¹ blade of grass, this prolonged until the rain was falling smartly to wash out all the foot-prints in the dusty road, Yeates and the Indian gave over and came to join us under the sheltering branches of an oak.
 
"'Tis a mighty⁴² cur'is sign; most mighty cur'is," quoth the hunter, slinging⁴³ the rain-drops from his fur cap and emptying the pan of his rifle, not upon the ground, as a soldier would, but saving every precious grain. "Ez I allow, I never heerd tell of any Injuns a-doing that-away afore; have you, Chief? hey?"
 
The Catawba's negative was his guttural "Wah," and Ephraim Yeates, having carefully restored the final grain of the priming to his powder-horn, proceeded to enlighten us at some length.
 
"Mighty cur'is, ez I was a-saying. Them Injuns fixed⁴⁴ up an ambushment, blazed in a volley at the clostest sort o' range, and followed it up with a tomahawk and knife rush,—lessen that there Afrikin was too plumb⁴⁵ daddled to tell any truth, whatsomedever. And, spite of all thi............