"All I keer 'bout is my chile in dar----"
"But we'll drive out the redcoats and the whitecoats and I'll come straight here----"
"An' all de men folks leavin' her heah wid nobody but black Ephraim an' her ole Mammy." The old woman stopped her fiery harangue to listen:
"Dar now, heah dat? My chile hollerin' fer her ole Mammy." She turned her unwieldy body toward the faint cry that Erskine's heart heard better than his ears, and Erskine hurried away.
"Ephraim," he said as he swung upon Firefly, "you and Mammy keep a close watch, and if I'm needed here, come for me yourself and come fast."
"Yassuh. Marse Grey is sutn'ly up to some devilmint no which side he fightin' fer. I got a gal oveh on the aige o' de Grey plantation an' she tel' me dat Marse Dane Grey don't wear dat white uniform all de time."
"What's that--what's that?" asked Erskine.
"No, suh. She say he got an udder uniform, same as yose, an' he keeps it at her uncle Sam's cabin an' she's seed him go dar in white an' come out in our uniform, an' al'ays at night, Marse Erskine--al'ays at night."
"Take to de woods quick, Marse Erskine. Horses comin' down the road."
But the sound of coming hoof-beats had reached the woodsman's ears some seconds before the black man heard them, and already Erskine had wheeled away. And Ephraim saw Firefly skim along the edge of a blackened meadow behind its hedge of low trees.
"Gawd!" said the black boy, and he stood watching the road. A band of white-coated troopers was coming in a cloud of dust, and at the head of them rode Dane Grey.
"Has Captain Erskine Dale been here?" he demanded.
Ephraim had his own reason for being on the good side of the questioner, and did not even hesitate.
"Yassuh--he jes' lef'! Dar he goes now!" With a curse Grey wheeled his troopers. At that moment Firefly, with something like the waving flight of a bluebird, was leaping the meadow fence into the woods. The black boy looked after the troopers' dust.
"Gawd!" he said again, with a grin that showed every magnificent tooth in his head. "Jest as well try to ketch a streak o' lightning." And quite undisturbed he turned to tell the news to old Mammy.
Up the James rode Erskine, hiding in the woods by day and slipping cautiously along the sandy road by night, circling about Tarleton's camp-fires, or dashing at full speed past some careless sentinel. Often he was fired at, often chased, but with a clear road in front of him he had no fear of capture. On the third morning he came upon a ragged sentinel--an American. Ten minutes later he got his first glimpse of Lafayette, and then he was hailed joyfully by none other than Dave Yandell, Captain Dave Yandell, shorn of his woodsman's dress and panoplied in the trappings of war.