Presently, as he held his steady pace, splashing through puddles and pattering along firmer stretches, he heard sharp and loud footfalls in rapid approach. Before his first impulse to strike into the ready cover of the woods was carried into effect, a horseman galloped around the turn, and he was face to face with a handsome stranger, whose tall, well-knit figure, heightened by his seat on horseback, towered above the boy like a giant. “Hello,” said the man, reining up his horse, “and where are you bound in such a hurry, and who might you be?” His clear gray eyes were fixed on Nathan, who noticed pistols in the holsters, a long gun across the saddle bow, and, in the cocked hat, a sprig of evergreen. “I’m Seth Beeman’s boy,” Nathan answered, pointing in the direction of his home, “and I’m goin’ to neighbor Newton’s of an arrant.” “Ah,—Beeman,—a good man, I’m told. And what might take you to neighbor Newton’s in such a hurry? Has that hemlock twig in your hand anything to do with your errand?” demanded the stranger, in an imperative but kindly voice. “Speak up. You need not be afraid of me.” Nathan looked up inquiringly at the bold, handsome face smiling down on him. “Did you ever hear of Ethan Allen?” asked the stranger. “Oh, yes; only yesterday father told about Ethan Allen’s throwing the Yorker’s millstones over the Great Falls at New Haven.” “Right and true! Well, I am Ethan Allen.” As he gave his name in a deep-toned voice of proud assurance, it seemed in itself a strong host. “Your father sent you with that twig to say there’s trouble at Beeman’s, didn’t he?” Nathan looked up in wonder, admiration, and gladness, and then, with the instinctive, unreasoned confidence that the famous chieftain of the Grants was wont to inspire, told unreservedly his father’s troubles and directions. When Allen had heard it, he wheeled his horse beside the nearest stump and bade Nathan mount behind him. “My horse’s feet will help you make your rounds quicker than yours, my man. We’ve no time to lose, for there’s no telling what those scoundrels may be at. Eight Yorkers! Well, we’ll soon raise good men enough to make short work of them.” Nathan mounted nimbly to his assigned place, and, clasping as far as he could the ample waist of his new friend, was borne along the road at a speed that soon brought them to the log house of the Newtons. A man of the herculean mould so common to the early Vermonters came out of the house to meet the comers, with an expression of pleased surprise on his good-humored face. “Why, colonel, we wa’n’t expectin’ on you so soon, but we hain’t no less glad to see you. ’Light and come in. Mother’ll hev potluck ready to rights. Why, is that the Beeman boy stickin’ on behind you? Anything the matter over to Beeman’s?” “No, we can’t ’light,” Allen replied; and then, looking down over his shoulder, “Do your errand, my boy, and we’ll push on.” Nathan held out the carefully kept sprig of evergreen and repeated his message.