"From towards Pacolet!" exclaimed the captain with surprise. "We saw nobody on that road. When did the man arrive?"
"About an hour before you. He came at full speed, with his horse—a great, black, snorting beast seventeen hands high at least—all in a foam. He was first for passing by without stopping, but we challenged him and brought him short upon his haunches, and then he told us he was in a hurry, and mustn't be delayed."
"What kind of a looking man was he?" inquired Habershaw.
"A jolly fellow," replied the lieutenant: "almost as big as his horse. A good civil fellow, too, that swigs well at a canteen. He made a joke of the matter about your coming up, and called you old Cat-o'-nine tails—said that you were the cat, and your nine tag-rags were the tails—ha, ha ha!"
"Blast the bastard!" exclaimed Habershaw; "who could he be?"
"Why we asked that, but he roared out with a great haw-haw—took another drink, and said he was never christened."
"You should, as a good soldier," said Habershaw, "have made him give his name."
"I tried him again, and he would only let us have a nickname; he told us then that he was called Jack-o'-Lantern, and had a special good stomach, and that if we wanted more of him we must give him a snatch of something to eat. Well, we did so. After that, he said he must have our landlord's sword, for his own had been torn from him by the Whig troopers that pushed him so hard, and that the bill for it must be sent to Cruger. So he got the old cheese-knife that used to hang over the fire-place and strung it across his shoulder. He laughed so hard, and seemed so good-natured, that there was no doing anything with him. At last he mounted his horse again, just stooped down and whispered in my ear at parting, that he was an old friend of yours, and that you could tell us all the news, and away he went, like a mad bully, clinking it over the hill at twenty miles to the hour."
"A black horse did you say?" inquired Habershaw. "Had he a white star in the forehead, and the two hind legs white below the knee?"
"Exactly," said the lieutenant and several others of the party.