I led the horse back to the road, where my little squad of men was waiting me, and who fell in behind me, astonished, I think, as I started east by north once more along the Mayfield road.
Presently Nick stole to my side through the darkness, not a whit embarrassed by my new military rank.
"Why, John," says he in a guarded voice, "is this not the Scotch girl of Caughnawaga who rides your mare, Kaya?"
I told him how she had come to the Bowmans the night before, and how, having stolen my mare, I bargained with her and must send her or guide her myself on the morrow to Cayadutta.
I was conscious of his stifled mirth but paid no heed, for we were entering the pineries now, where all was inky dark, and the trail to be followed only by touch of foot.
"Drop your bridle; Kaya will follow me," I called back softly to the girl, Penelope. "Hold to the saddle and be not afraid."
"I am not afraid," said she.
We were now moving directly toward Fonda's Bush, and not three miles from my own house, but presently we crossed the brook, ascended a hill, and so came out of the pinery and took a wide and starlit waggon-path which bore to the left, running between fields where great stumps stood.
This was Sir William's carriage road to the Point; and twice we crossed the Kennyetto by shallow fords.
Close beside this carriage path on the north, and following all the way, ran the Iroquois war trail, hard and clean as a sheep walk, worn more than a foot deep by the innumerable moccasined feet that had trodden it through the ages.