On the fourth day after our having settled down in this encampment, Major James and Captain Mouzon were sent back into the lower Carolinas to make certain those who were enlisted in the Williamsburg brigade held steadfast to their pledges, and the absence of our uncle was to Percy and I like a great calamity. We looked upon him not only as the head of the family; but as a true friend and companion-in-arms upon whom we could rely under every circumstance, and although not thrown much in his company because of the position we occupied in the force, the knowledge of his being near at hand, did we need his advice, was in itself a pleasurable satisfaction which we failed fully to realize until he was absent.
When a week passed and we were "rusting out," as Gavin Witherspoon said, it seemed absolutely necessary we have some employment, and the old man said to me one morning while Percy was making ready the breakfast:
"Three men have already been sent out as scouts since we came into this camp, and such duty is necessary because it stands to reason that the Tories will make every effort to discover the general's hiding-place."
"Ay, all you have said is true, Gavin Witherspoon," I replied; "but of what avail is it to us since the general calls upon others to act as scouts, forgetting that we readily performed such duty when it was an hundred times more dangerous than at present?"
"This is how it may avail," the old man said in the tone of one who defies contradiction. "You shall go this morning to General Marion and offer the services of us three, promising that we will act as scouts so long as the detachment remains here."
"But if he refuses to detail us for such work?"
"Then pluck up sufficient courage to remind him that we went gladly, when, perchance, every man in the command would have hesitated. By so doing you may make him understand he owes something to us three."
At first thought I was not willing to browbeat our commander, for it appeared to me that what Gavin Witherspoon had proposed was little less than an attempt to bully the general into acceding to our desires; but the longer I considered the matter the more reasonable did it seem that we should be sent out, rather than forced to remain in camp where our presence was of no possible benefit.
By going we should take away nothing of value from the encampment, and it might be possible fortune would so favor us that we could render some signal assistance, even though it did not seem probable there was any force of the enemy in that vicinity.
Therefore it was that I did as Gavin Witherspoon requested, and to our great surprise the general not only willingly gave his consent, but said it pleasured him much that we should so desire to serve the Cause.