"You were found yesterday," said Tarleton, "in suspicious circumstances—what is your name, fellow?"
"I am called Stephen Foster by name," replied the sergeant, "being a stranger in these parts. At home I'm a kind of a gardener to a gentleman in Virginia; and it isn't long since I set out with his daughter to come here into Carolina. She fell sick by the way, and yesterday, whilst I was hunting up a little physic for her in the woods, a gang of your people came across me and fotch me here—and that's about all that I have got to say."
A series of questions followed, by which the sergeant was compelled to give some further account of himself, which he contrived to do with an address that left his questioners but little the wiser as to his real character; and which strongly impressed them with the conviction that the man they had to deal with was but a simple and rude clown.
"You say you don't know the name of the person at whose house you stopped?" inquired the commander.
"I disremember," replied Horse Shoe; "being, as I said, a stranger in the parts, and not liking to make too free with axing after people's names."
"A precious lout, this, you have brought me, Lieutenant Munroe," said Tarleton, addressing the officer who had hitherto had the custody of the sergeant. "You don't disremember the part of Virginia you lived in?" he added, pursuing his examination.
"They have given it the name of Amherst," replied Horse Shoe.
"And the father of Miss Lindsay, you say, resided there?"
"Sartainly, sir."
"There is a gentleman of that name somewhere in Virginia," said Tarleton, apart to one of his attendants, "and known as a friend to our cause, I think."