"WARNING!
All farmers and townsfolk are hereby requested and ordered to remove gates, stiles, cow-bars, and fences, which includes all obstructions to the public highway, in order that the cavalry may pass without difficulty. Any person found felling trees across this road, or otherwise impeding the operations of cavalry by building brush, stump, rail, or stone fences across this road, will be arrested and tried before a court on charge of aiding and giving comfort to the enemy. G. COVERT,
"Captain Commanding Legion."
Either this order did not apply to the cross-road which we now filed into, or the owners of adjacent lands paid no heed to it; for presently, a few rods ahead of us, we saw a snake fence barring the road and a man with a pack on his back in the act of climbing over it.
He was going in the same direction that we were, and seemed to be a fur-trader laden with packets of peltry.
I said this to Murphy, who laughed and looked at Mount.
"Who carries pelts to Quebec in August?" asked Elerson, grinning.
"There's the skin of a wolverine dangling from his pack," I said, in a low voice.
Murphy touched Mount's arm, and they halted until the man ahead had rounded a turn in the road; then they sprang forward, creeping swiftly to the shelter of the undergrowth at the bend of the road, while Elerson and I followed at an easy pace.
"What is it?" I asked, as we rejoined them where they were kneeling, looking after the figure ahead.
"Nothing, sir; we only want to see them pelts, Tim and me."
"Do you know the man?" I demanded.