"Where was Cruger then?"
"Marching towards Saluda, with Brown—following Clarke, as it was supposed—but on rather a cold scent as one of the couriers reported."
"Humph! I must get still nearer to the mountains," said Ferguson, as he clenched his teeth and seemed absorbed in thought.
In a short time after this, the column diverged from their former course by a road that led westward.
Thus ended the second day.
During the next two days, Ferguson had become manifestly more circumspect in his movement, and spent the greater portion of this interval upon a road which was said to extend from Ninety-Six, to the Allegany mountain. Here he remained, with the wariness of the tiger that prepares to spring upon his prey; and it was with a petulant temper that, after this anxious watch for forty-eight hours, he turned upon his heel and summoned his officers around him, and announced his determination to penetrate still further into the forest. Like a man perplexed and peevish with crosses, he soon changed his mind, and ordered a lieutenant of cavalry into his presence.
"Take six of your best appointed men," he said, "and send one half of them up this road towards the mountains—the other half southwards—and command them not to stop until they bring me some news of this night-hawk, Clarke. Let them be trusty men that you can depend upon. I will wait but twenty-four hours for them. Meantime," he added, turning to another officer present, "I will send a courier after Cruger, who shall find him if he is above ground."
The following day—which brings us to the third of October—a decisive change took place in the aspect of affairs. Before either of the scouts that had been lately despatched had returned, a countryman was brought into Ferguson's camp, who, being submitted to the usual minute examination, informed the questioners, that some thirty miles, in the direction of Fort Ninety-Six, he had met upon the road a large party of cavalry under the command of Colonel Williams—and that that officer had shown great anxiety to learn whether certain Whig troops had been seen near Gilbert-town. The informant added, that "Williams appeared to him to be strangely particular in his inquiries about Ferguson."
This intelligence seemed suddenly to awaken the British partisan from a dream. He was now one hundred miles south of Cornwallis; and, both east and west of the line of communication between them, it was apparent that hostile parties were assembling, with a view to some united action against him. It struck him now, for the first time, that an enemy might be thrown between the main army at Charlotte and his detachment, and thus cause him some embarrassment in his retreat—but it was still with the scorn of a presumptuous soldier that he recurred to the possibility of his being forced to fight his way.
"They are for turning the tables on me," he said, in a tone of derision, "and hope to pounce upon my back while I am taken up with this half-starved and long-legged fellow of the mountains, But I will show them who is master yet!"