the porch, and leaped into his saddle, and he and his men rode off into
the stump-lined alley in the forest that was called a road. Nick stood
beside the widow, staring after them until they had disappeared.

"My horse, boy!" he shouted to the gaping negro, who vanished on the
errand.

"What will you do, Mr. Temple?" asked the widow.

"Rescue him, ma'am," cried Nick, beginning to pace up and down. "I'll
ride to Turner's. Cozby and Evans are there, and before night we shall
have made Jonesboro too hot to hold Tipton and his cutthroats."

"La, Mr. Temple," said the widow, with unfeigned admiration, "I never saw
the like of you. But I know John Tipton, and he'll have Colonel Sevier
started for North Carolina before our boys can get to Jonesboro."

"Then we'll follow," says Nick, beginning to pace again. Suddenly, at a
cry from the widow, he stopped and stared at me, a light in his eye like
a point of steel. His hand slipped to his waist.

"A spy," he said, and turned and smiled at the lady, who was watching him
with a kind of fascination; "but damnably cool," he continued, looking at
me. "I wonder if he thinks to outride me on that beast? Look you, sir,"
he cried, as Mrs. Brown's negro came back struggling with a deep-ribbed,
high-crested chestnut that was making half circles on his hind legs,
"I'll give you to the edge of the woods, and lay you a six-forty against
a pair of moccasins that you never get back to Tipton."

"God forbid that I ever do," I answered fervently.