tired horses. We were still yawning and drowsing, stretched out in our
hickory chairs, and only kept awake by the flies, when our landlord
returned and set before us what food he had. The fare was scanty
enough, but we ate hungrily, and drank deeply of the fresh small beer
which he fetched in a Liverpool jug.

When we two were alone again, Boyd whispered:

"As well let them think we're here with no other object than
recruiting. And so we are, after a fashion; but neither this state nor
Pennsylvania is like to fill its quota here. Where is your map, once
more?"

I drew the coiled linen roll from the breast of my rifle shirt and
spread it out. We studied it, heads together.

"Here lies Poundridge," nodded Boyd, placing his finger on the spot so
marked. "Roads a-plenty, too. Well, it's odd, Loskiel, but in this
cursed, debatable land I feel more ill at ease than I have ever felt
in the Iroquois country."

"You are still thinking of our landlord's deathly face," I said.
"Lord! What a very shadow of true manhood crawls about this house!"

"Aye-- and I am mindful of every other face and countenance I have so
far seen in this strange, debatable land. All have in them something
of the same expression. And therein lies the horror of it all, Mr.
Loskiel God knows we expect to see deathly faces in the North, where
little children lie scalped in the ashes of our frontier-- where they
even scalp the family hound that guards the cradle. But here in this