"Josiah Blackstone? where is Blackstone? We owe our lives to him," said James Carter.
"Ay, verily we do!" shouted a chorus of voices.
"You say truly," responded Colonel Willard. "When he arrived at my camp this morning both he and his horse were dead beat; he could not have ridden back with me. There comes a time when even the strongest man has to give in, and Josh Blackstone had reached that stage. Do you know where he came from?"
"From Mount Hope; he was made prisoner by Philip, and escaped," said Stephen Carter.
"After running the gantlet, and coming out of it alive, which not one man in fifty succeeds in doing," said the colonel; "and it seems to me he has been on the go ever since. No marvel if he dropped from his horse in a dead faint after he had delivered your message. He's a Spartan! A cheer for brave Josh Blackstone!"
And the cheer went up right gladly, whilst the women brushed the tears from their eyes, and the men muttered in their beards, "He's a brave lad! a right brave lad!"
All through that winter and the following spring and summer the war raged; a reign of terror spread over the land.
When Josiah Blackstone reached his home he found the house burnt to the ground, the trees in the orchard felled, only the trodden-down grave of his grandsire left to mark where his inheritance had been.