She made no reply. I mounted behind her, took the bridle from her chilled fingers, and spoke to Kaya very gaily. And so we rode across my sunlit glebe and across the sugar-bush, where the moist trail, full of ferns, stretched away toward Mayfield as straight as the bee flies. I do not know whether it was because the wench was now fulfilling her duty, as she deemed it, and therefore had become contented in a measure, but when I dismounted she took the bridle with a glance that seemed near to a faint smile. But maybe it was her mouth that I thought fashioned in pleasant lines. "Will you remember, soldier?" she asked, looking down at me from the saddle. "I shall wait some news of you at the Mayfield fort." "I shall not let you remain there long abandoned," said I cheerily. "Be kind to Kaya. She has a tender mouth and an ear more sensitive still to a harsh word." The girl laid a hand flat on my mare's neck and looked at me, the shy caress in her gesture and in her eyes. Both were meant for my horse; and a quick kindness for this Scotch girl came into my heart. "Take shelter at the Mayfield fort," said I, "and be very certain I shall not forget you. You may gallop all the way on this soft wood-road. Will you care for Kaya at the fort when she is unsaddled?" A smile suddenly curved her lips. "Yes, John Drogue," she answered, looking me in the eyes. And the next moment she was off at a gallop, her yellow hair loosened with the first bound of the horse, and flying all about her face and shoulders now, like sunshine flashing across windblown golden-rod. Then, in her saddle, the girl turned and looked back at me, and sat so, still galloping, until she was out of sight. And, as I stood there alone in the woodland road, I began to understand what Nick Stoner meant when he called this Scotch girl a disturber of men's minds and a mistress--all unconscious, perhaps--of a very deadly art. CHAPTER VIII SHEEP AND GOATS Now, as I came again to the forest's edge and hastened along the wide logging road, to make up for moments wasted, I caught sight of two neighbors, John Putman and Herman Salisbury, walking ahead of me. They wore the regimentals of our Mohawk Regiment of district militia, carried rifles and packs; and I smelled the tobacco from their pipes, which seemed pleasant though I had never learned to smoke. I called to them; they heard me and waited. "Well, John," says Putman, as I came up with them, "this is like to be a sorry business for farmers, what with plowing scarce begun and not a seed yet planted in all the Northland, barring winter wheat." "You think we are to take the field in earnest this time?" I asked anxiously. "It looks that way to me, Mr. Drogue. It's a long, long road to liberty, lad; and I'm thinking we're off at last." "He believes," explained Salisbury, "that Little Abraham's Mohawks are leaving the Lower Castle--which God prevent!--but I think this business is liker to be some new deviltry of Sir John's."