"Hit were Dave Blount. Get your gun, Bob, and go after him--kill
the miserable sneaking cuss!" cried Uncle Sammy, who believed in
settling all difficulties by bloodshed as befitted a veteran of
the first war with England, he having risen to the respectable
rank of sergeant in a company of Morgan's riflemen; while at
sixty-odd in '12, when there was recruiting at the Cross Roads,
his son had only been able to prevent his tendering his services
to his country by hiding his trousers. "Fetch his rifle, some of
you fool women!" cried Uncle Sammy. "By the Fayetteville Road,
Bob, not ten minutes ago--you can cut him off at Ox Road forks!"

Yancy breathed a sigh of relief. The situation was not entirely
desperate, for, as Uncle Sammy said, he could reach the Ox Road
forks before Blount possibly could, by going as the crow flies
through the pine woods.

"Hit wouldn't have happened if there'd been a man on the Hill,
but there was nothing but a passel of women about the place. I
heard the boys crying when Dave Blount lifted your nevvy into the
buggy," said Uncle Sammy; "all I could do was to cuss him across
two fields. I hope you blow his hide full of holes!" for a rifle
had been placed in Yancy's hands.

"Thank you-all kindly," said Yancy, and turning away he struck
off through the pine woods. A brisk walk of twenty minutes
brought him to the Ox Road forks, as it was called, where he
could plainly distinguish the wheel and hoof marks left by the
buggy and team as it went to Scratch Hill, but there was only the
single track.