"To Mount Ponchas."
"That's only seven and a half miles. You can go along up the hill road from here, and when you come to the state road that has telegraph poles on it, you turn off and go west. It's three hills over and you pass through one village, Shiloh Valley. When you come to Ponchas don't forget to look for the grave of the Cavalier."
"Where's that?" asked Jean. "We haven't heard of it at all."
This was touching Billie's heart in the right spot. He knew every rod of land for miles around Gilead and loved its old historic lore. The girls did not know it then, but life was rather a dull affair over at the Judge's place. There were only the Judge himself; Mrs. Gorham, his housekeeper; Farley Riggs, his general business man; and Ben Brooks, the hired man. It was rather an unsympathetic household for a boy of fifteen, especially one who had been unwelcome; but he had made friends with Ben and had found him a treasure house of information.
There might be other sections of importance in the United States besides Gilead Center, Connecticut, but Ben held them in slight esteem. He had been born and brought up there and had never even wanted to go away. The sun had always risen and set for him beyond the encircling Quinnebaug Hills. He was about forty when Billie first came, genial, optimistic, rather good-looking, and an insatiable reader.
Billie's two favorite occupations were ranging the country on personal hikes of exploration and sitting up in Ben's room over the corn house in the evenings, looking at his books and magazines and listening to him talk on current topics and historic events. No topic was too intricate for Ben to tackle. No government ever evaded him when it came to diplomatic tricks or ways. He was on to them all, as he told Billie.
So now Billie remembered how Ben had told him about the mysterious stranger who had come to Gilead back in the earliest days of the settlement. The colonists had suffered much from Indian raids until there came into their midst a man whom they called the Cavalier. With his negro body-servant, he had lived amongst them and taught them defense against their savage foes, taught them the best way to win over the soil and reclaim the wilderness. Yet when he died they knew no more of him than on the first day when he rode into their village. His grave lay over on the south side of Mount Ponchas where he had wished it to be, near a rock where he had often held council with the Indians.
"Be sure to see it when you get there," Billie advised. "I wish I was going along with you."
"Come over to our place, won't you, Billie?" Kit asked in her most neighborly way. "I'd like to ask you about some arrow heads we found. Will you?"
Billie nodded his head nonchalantly. It was like giving a bird an invitation to call on you, or handing your card to a rabbit. But he watched them as they went up the hill road from the river, and when Doris turned and waved, he waved back. At least he was interested in his trespassers, even though he could not quite forgive them for having discovered his pet hiding place.