"Indian fashion," replied the sergeant. "Buckle your belt a little tighter every two or three hours. A man may shrivel his guts up to the size of a pipe stem. But I found a better way to get along than by taking in my belt"——
"Now, for another stratagem!"
"I commonly, about dark, crept as near to a farm house as I mought venture to go; and, putting on a poor mouth, told the folks I had a touch of the small-pox, and was dying for a little food. They were Christians enough to give me a dish of bread and milk, or something of that sort, and cowards enough to keep so much out of the way, as not to get a chance to look me in the face. They laid provisions on the ground, and then walked away while I came up to get them. Though I didn't think much of the fashion I was waited on, and had sometimes to quarrel with a bull-dog for my supper, I don't believe I ever ate with a better appetite in my life. The first bread of freedom, no matter how coarse, a man eats after his escape from prison, is the sweetest morsel in nature. And I do think it is a little pleasanter when he eats it at the risk of his life."
Butler nodded his head.
"Well, after this," continued Horse Shoe, "I had like to have lost all by another mishap. My course was for the upper country, because the nearer I got to my own home the better I was acquainted with the people. That scrummaging character, Tarleton, you may have hearn, scampered off, as soon as ever Charlestown was taken, after Colonel Abraham Buford, who was on his way down to the city when the news was fotch him of our surrender. Buford accordingly came to the right about, to get out of harm's way as fast as he could, and Tarleton followed close on his heels. Think of that devil, major, trying to catch a man a hundred miles away! It was a brazen hearted thing! considering, besides, that Buford had a good regiment with him. When nobody thought it anything more than a brag, sure enough, he overhauls Buford yonder at the Waxhaws—onawares, you may say—and there he tore him all to pieces. They say it was a bloody cruel sight, to see how these English troopers did mangle the poor fellows. I doubt there wasn't fair play. But, major, that Tarleton rides well and is a proper soldier, take him man to man. It so happened that as I was making along towards Catawba, who should I come plump upon, but Tarleton and his lads, with their prisoners, all halting beside a little run to get water!"
"Again in trouble, sergeant! Truly you have had full measure of adventures!"
"I was pretty near nonplushed, major," said Horse Shoe, with a broad laugh, "but I thought of a stratagem. I let fall my under jaw, and sot my eyes as wild as a madman, and twisted my whole face out of joint—and began to clap my hands, and hurra for the red coats, like a natural fool. So, when Tarleton and two or three of his people came to take notice of me, they put me down for a poor idiot that had been turned adrift."
"Did they hold any discourse with you?"
"A good deal; and, just to try me, they flogged me with the flats of their swords; but I laughed and made merry when they hurt me worst, and told them I thanked them for their politeness. There were some of our people amongst the prisoners, that I knew, and I was mortally afeard they would let on, but they didn't. Especially, there was Seth Cuthbert, from Tryon, who had both of his hands chopped off in the fray at the Waxhaws; he was riding double behind a trooper, and he held up the stumps just to let me see how barbarously he was mangled. I was dubious they would see that he knowed me, but he took care of that. Bless your soul, major! he saw my drift in the first shot of his eye. Thinking that they mought take it into their noddles to carry me along with them back, I played the quarest trick that I suppose ever a man thought of; it makes me laugh now to tell it. I made a spring that fetched me right upon the crupper of Colonel Tarleton's horse, which sot him to kicking and flirting at a merry rate; and, whilst the creature was floundering as if a hornet had stung him, I took the colonel's cap and put it upon my own head, and gave him mine. And after I had vagaried in this sort of way for a little while, I let the horse fling me on the ground. You would have thought the devils would have died a laughing. And the colonel himself, although at first he was very angry, couldn't help laughing likewise. He said that I was as strange a fool as he ever saw, and that it would be a pity to hurt me. So he threw me a shilling, and, whilst they were all in good humor, I trudged away."
"It was a bold experiment, and might be practised a thousand times without success. If I did not know you, Robinson, to be a man of truth, as well as courage, I should scarce believe this tale. If any one, hereafter, should tell your story, he will be accounted a fiction-monger."