"He had the wit to send Butler to stop me!" I answered, bitterly.
Mount began to grin again and wink his eyes slyly.
"Butler came for something else, too," he said. "Dunmore's suite travelled south the day you left, and ought to be in Fortress Pitt by this hour to-morrow."
"What of it?" I asked.
"Ay, that's it, you see. Since you left Johnstown, all are talking of the new beauty who threw over Walter Butler—what's her name—a certain Miss Warren, ward of Sir William; and it is commonly reported that the dispute over the Indians and the quarrel betwixt Butler and Sir William stopped the match."
"What of it!" I broke out, hoarsely.
"Only that this beautiful Miss Warren came with Lord Dunmore's suite to Pittsburg, and Walter Butler has openly boasted he will marry her spite of Sir William or the devil himself. And here is the lady—and here comes her rash gallant tumbling after his jill!"
To hear her name in the southern wilderness, to hear these things in this place, told coarsely, told with a wink and a leer, raised such a black fury in me that I could scarce see the man before me. As for speaking, my throat closed and my breast heaved as though to burst the very straps on my pack. Oh, that I had killed Butler! I clutched my rifle and glared into the gray waste of misty trees. Somewhere out there that devil was lurking; and when I had fulfilled my trust I would seek him and end everything for good and all.
"Are you certain that Miss Warren is already in Pittsburg?" I managed to ask.
"We saw the ladies and the escort a week since," said Mount. "The trail is good for horses below Crown Gap, and they were well mounted, ay, nobly horsed, ladies and troopers, by Heaven! Was it not a splendid sight, Cade?"