At last Shemuel appeared, slinking past the lighted inn windows and into the mews, where we waited in the starlight, rubbing his hands and peering about with alert obsequiousness and an apparent inability to appreciate the tension that I, for one, quivered under.
"I haff sold all my goots," he remarked, cheerfully; "my packets I haff stored mit my friends at dose 'Bear and Cubs.' I puy me Delaware paskets in Baltimore—eh, Jack?"
"Here are your pistols," I said; "do you know how to use them?"
"Ach yess," he replied, with a sly smile at Mount, who grunted, and said:
"Shemmy is just as handy with pistols as he is with his needles. No fear, Mr. Cardigan," and looking around, he motioned the peddler to his side.
"I hear that the Monongahela is in flood," he said. "Is the wooden bridge all right, Shemmy?"
Shemuel did not know and went away to inquire, returning presently from the stables with the information that heavy storms had swept the southern mountains and the Monongahela was over its banks, but the dam below the bridge had gone out, leaving the wooden structure safe.
"Then there won't be a ford for twenty miles," muttered Mount, "and I'm glad of it. Shemmy, just borrow four new axes of Rolfe, will you? And, say, just shove them into the boot!"
Again Shemuel disappeared, and after a short absence came trotting back with the bundle of brand-new axes on his shoulder.
"Are they ground?" asked Mount.