The variety of missiles was as great as that of weapons. A few had muskets or rifle balls which they themselves had molded; others carried buck-shot, and some were provided only with bird-shot.
As for swords, bayonets and pikes, we had none, and the first order which General Marion issued after arriving at Lynch's Creek, caused me to have a higher opinion of him than I had at first believed would be possible.
Word was given that the force disperse in squads of from five to a dozen men, and set about sacking the saw mills in the immediate vicinity. Nothing was to be taken away from them save the saws, and these it was proposed should be beaten by the blacksmiths of the district into sabres.
Now in such work as this two lads like Percy and myself could do as much as men, and, without asking the privilege of volunteering, we set out, forming an "independent command of two," as Percy put it, bound for a certain mill owned by one Pingree, who had announced again and again that a Carolinian who would set himself in defiance against the king deserved nothing better than hanging.
It was no brave adventure which we started upon, and yet it led to our being brought into direct, and I might almost say close, contact with General Marion himself.
There was little need that we two lads should ask permission from our mother to join in the work of saw gathering, for the major was at the head of the family in good truth, and whatsoever he might do, was, in the opinion of even the most distant relatives, worthy of being copied.
It was only necessary Percy and I should announce that we counted on aiding the major so far as might be possible, and our mother at once saw that we were provided with such amount of provisions as would serve to keep hunger at bay during at least two days.
Perhaps my uncle might have objected to the plan had he been informed of it; but such information we were not minded to give lest the venture should be a failure, and we become a butt for his mirth.
Therefore it was we set out secretly, so to speak, armed with the rifles which during no less than half a dozen years had served us in all the turkey-hunts and deer-stalking parties we were allowed to join.
Because this venture of ours was not important, save in what it led up to, there is no reason why I should use many words in the telling of it. Suffice it to say that after a tramp of ten miles or more, when we had crossed the Pedee River at Port's Ferry and were at Pingree's Mills, we learned, greatly to our surprise and considerably to our fear, that we should not be allowed to dismantle the building.