So, unquestioned, we passed out into the country, where a few heavily stockaded farms flanked the road, always built on heights, and always free from trees or any cover that might shelter an attacking enemy. Beyond these farms the road became a turnpike, and we stopped at the toll-gate to pay tuppence to the keeper's wife, who sat nursing a baby, one hand on a rifle, which she never let go until the evening brought her husband to keep his perilous vigil there all night.
"No," she said, listlessly, "no Indians have troubled us. Yet, God knows I sleep not while my man is out here in the night, though they send a patrol from the fortress every hour."
Mount earnestly advised her to give up the toll-gate until the border had quieted; but she only stared, saying, "How, then, are we to live?" And we passed on in silence, side by side.
Beyond the toll-gate a broad road curved out from the turnpike, running south, and Mount pointed it out as the road we were to travel that night.
"It crosses the Virginia border by that blue hill yonder," he said, then suddenly jerked his head over his shoulder.
"I think I am right; I think I know the jade," he said, calmly.
"Is it a woman who follows us?" I asked, amazed.
"Ay, a bit of a lass, maybe eighteen or thereabouts."
"You know her?"
"And she me," said Mount, grimly. "Harkee, friend Michael, if you must needs know the truth, her father is—Gad! I can scarce say it to you, but—well—her father is what they call a thief-taker."