"Over with you!" I shouted, pricking the man who would have mowed him down with a great scythe handled as a sword. Our horses took the barrier in a flying leap, straining themselves for the race beyond. When we had pulled them down to a foot pace we were safely out of rifle shot and there was space to count the cost. There was no cost worth counting. A saddle horn bullet-shattered for me, and the back of Jennifer's sword hand scored lightly across by another of the random missiles summed up our woundings. Dick whipped out his kerchief to twist about the scored hand, while I glanced back to see if any Tory cared to follow. "Lord, Jack! I owe you one to keep and one to pay back," quoth my youngster, warmly. "I never saw a swordsman till this day!" "Mere tricks, Dick, my lad; I have had fifteen years in which to learn them. And these were but country yokels armed with farming tools. The two with swords had little wit to use them." "Oh, come!" said he. "I know a pretty bit of sword play when I see it. If we come whole out of this adventure with the baronet you shall teach me some of these 'mere tricks' of yours." I promised, glancing back toward the dust-veiled barrier in the distance. "Dick, you passed this way an hour ago; was that breastwork in the road then?" "Not a stick of it." "Then we may dare say our volunteer captain fights unwillingly." "How so?" he demanded, being much too straightforward himself to suspect duplicity in others. "'Tis plain enough. This was a trap, meant to stop or delay us, and I'll wager high it was the baronet who set and baited it. It would please him well to be able to say what our failure to come would give him warrant for. Let us gallop a bit, lest we be late and so play into his hand." Jennifer smiled grimly and gave his horse the rein. "I think you'd charge the Fall of Man to him if that would give you better leave to kill him. I'd hate to own you for my enemy, John Ireton." For all our swift speeding we were yet a little late at the rendezvous under the tall oaks. When we came on the ground the baronet was walking up and down arm in arm with his second, a broad-shouldered young Briton, fair of skin and ruddy of face. If Falconnet had set the Tory trap for us he veiled his disappointment at its failure. His face, dark and inscrutable as it always was, was made more sinister by the plasters knitting up his broken cheek, but I was right glad to make sure that my blow had spared his eyes. Richly as he deserved his fate, I thought it would be ill to think on afterward that I had had him at a disadvantage of my own making. There was little time wasted in the preliminaries. When Falconnet saw us he dropped his second's arm and began to make ready. I gave my sword to Jennifer, and the seconds went apart together. There was some measuring and balancing of weapons, and then Richard came back.