“He can consider that a promise of what’s coming,” Sevier told himself as he paused to reload. He raced on recklessly, feeling only contempt for a white man who would seek to ambush one of his own colour, but he pulled his horse in sharply enough on discovering the trail of the fugitive now showed two sets of tracks. Either some one was pursuing him or had emerged from the woods to ride with him. “They’re friends. Two against one,” he decided after studying the tracks carefully. Night overtook him without his sighting the couple. This time he arranged his camp with much cunning, camping apart from his evening fire and arranging his blankets so as to resemble the muffled form of a sleeper. He fell asleep at once and slumbered peacefully until aroused by a rifle-shot. “Daylight is when I want to meet you, my lads,” he drowsily murmured before turning over and going to sleep again. With the first light he returned to the dead camp-fire and retrieved his blanket. There was a hole through one end of it. He examined the ground and found where the intruder had stolen forward to shoot and then ran away without investigating the success of his shot. That he had retreated in haste was indicated by the broken sticks and the torn up moss. “Never even stopped to see if he got me,” murmured Sevier with a grin. “Wonder if it was Hajason or the man who joined him. Hajason seemed to have enough grit when he faced McGillivray.” His visitor had come afoot and his trail was lost once he struck into the main trail. Sevier lost some time in searching for the men’s camp, then shrewdly decided he could pick them up by pressing on to the headwaters of the Hiwassee. Moving cautiously, for even a coward’s lead is not to be despised in the daylight, he covered a dozen miles and was brought to keen attention by the muffled report of a rifle some distance away. This shot was not intended for him, and the field of conjecture was very wide. Had it been followed by other shots he would have believed the riflemen were heading off Hajason and his mate. But the forest remained quiet enough and, leading his animal, he stole on. Suddenly a frantic scrambling of a heavy body in a dense growth sent him to shelter; and yet neither of the outlaws’ mounts could be creating this confusion. He stood erect, his gaze betraying his astonishment as a woman’s voice close at hand shrieked the one word— “Father!” The anguish in her voice bespoke a deadly fear. Sevier darted toward the sound. Again the voice rang out, this time in a cry of despair, followed by a hoarse shout of triumph. And the bushes parted and a maddened horse, riderless and with blood-smears on his flank, plunged out and past the borderer. Throwing caution to the winds, Sevier plunged ahead. A familiar voice was exclaiming: “Run ye down, pretty bird, didn’t I? Wasn’t fit for ye to wipe yer leetle feet on—an’ now!”