a powder and lead cargo they was a-waiting for; and they're allowing to
sneak it through the mountings to the overhill Cherokees."

"Well?" says Dick.

The old man cut another slice of the venison and took his time to
impale it on the forked toasting stick.

"Well, then I says to the chief, here, says I, 'Chief, this here's our
A-number-one chance to spile the 'Gyptians; get heap gun, heap powder,
heap lead, heap scalp.' The chief, he says, 'Wah!'--which is good
Injun-talk for anything ye like,--and so here we are, hot-foot on the
trail o' that there hoss-captain and his powder varmints."

"Alone?" said I, in sheer amazement at the brazen effrontery of this
chase of half a hundred well-armed men by two.

The old hunter chuckled his dry little laugh. "We ain't sich tarnation
big fools ez we look, Cap'n John. There's a good plenty of 'em to wallop
us, ez I'll allow, if it come to fighting 'em fair and square. But
there'll be some dark night 'r other whenst we can slip up on 'em and
raise a scalp 'r two and lift what plunder we can tote; hey, Chief?"

But now Richard would inquire what time in the night the powder convoy
left Appleby Hundred, and if Gilbert Stair's York District guests had
traveled with it. To these askings Yeates made answer that Falconnet and
his troop, with the Cherokee contingent, had taken the road at midnight,
or thereabouts; and that the Witherbys, with Mistress Margery riding her
own black mare, and her maid on a pillion behind a negro groom, had
passed some two hours later.