All this time the sable guide, although walking fast, limped as if he were hurt.
"What makes you lame?" asked Eva.
"I was hit by a cannon-ball on de knee," was the astonishing answer: "it slewed my leg round a little, but I'll soon be all right again."
At this moment, when the hearts of all were beating high with hope, a rustling was heard among the undergrowth on their right, and the little company paused and looked up, expecting to see a dozen or more painted Iroquois in their war paint.
The click, click of the African's rifle, as he drew back the flint, showed that he was ready to do everything to defend those who cowered behind him like scared sheep.
To the surprise of each, however, a single man came hurriedly forth. All identified him as Jake Golcher, an old resident of Wyoming, but one of the bitterest of Tories, whose hatred of his former neighbors and friends seemed as intense as that of Queen Esther, or Katharine Montour, one of the leaders of the invaders.
He was as much surprised as the fugitives themselves, and he stared at them with open mouth, slouch hat thrown on the back of his head, and the stock of his gun resting at his feet. He was the first to recover his speech, and, with an expletive, he demanded:
"Where did you come from?"
"Am you abdressing your remarks to me or to de ladies?" asked Gravity of the man whom he detested, and of whom, even then, he had not the slightest fear.
"I'm speaking to all of you," said Golcher, glancing furtively at the vinegar face of Aunt Peggy, and bestowing a beaming smile on Maggie Brainerd.