"By God!" exclaimed Clark, striking Mr. Boone on the knee, "that's what I'd do." CHAPTER XI FRAGMENTARY Mr. Boone's visit lasted but a day. I was a great deal with Colonel Clark in the few weeks that followed before his departure for Virginia. He held himself a little aloof (as a leader should) from the captains in the station, without seeming to offend them. But he had a fancy for James Ray and for me, and he often took me into the woods with him by day, and talked with me of an evening. "I'm going away to Virginia, Davy," he said; "will you not go with me? We'll see Williamsburg, and come back in the spring, and I'll have you a little rifle made." My look must have been wistful. "I can't leave Polly Ann and Tom," I answered. "Well," he said, "I like that. Faith to your friends is a big equipment for life." "But why are you going?" I asked. "Because I love Kentucky best of all things in the world," he answered, smiling. "And what are you going to do?" I insisted. "Ah," he said, "that I can't tell even to you." "To catch Hamilton?" I ventured at random. He looked at me queerly. "Would you go along, Davy?" said he, laughing now. "Would you take Tom?" "Among the first," answered Colonel Clark, heartily. We were seated under the elm near the spring, and at that instant I saw Tom coming toward us. I jumped up, thinking to please him by this intelligence, when Colonel Clark pulled me down again. "Davy," said he, almost roughly, I thought, "remember that we have been joking. Do you understand?--joking. You have a tongue in your mouth, but sense enough in your head, I believe, to hold it." He turned to Tom. "McChesney, this is a queer lad you brought us," said he. "He's a little deevil," agreed Tom, for that had become a formula with him. It was all very mysterious to me, and I lay awake many a night with curiosity, trying to solve a puzzle that was none of my business. And one day, to cap the matter, two woodsmen arrived at Harrodstown with clothes frayed and bodies lean from a long journey. Not one of the hundred questions with which they were beset would they answer, nor say where they had been or why, save that they had carried out certain orders of Clark, who was locked up with them in a cabin for several hours. The first of October, the day of Colonel Clark's departure, dawned crisp and clear. He was to take with him the disheartened and the cowed, the weaklings who loved neither work nor exposure nor danger. And before he set out of the gate he made a little speech to the assembled people.