"As good as done. The Indians are to have powder and lead of us, after which they make a sudden onfall on the over-mountain settlements. And that fetches us to your part in it, Sir Frank; and to yours, Mr. Stair. Your troop, Captain, will be the convoy for this powder; and you, Mr. Stair, are requisitioned to provide the commissary." There was silence while a cat might wink, and then Gilbert Stair broke in upon it shrilly. "I can not, Captain Stuart; that I can not!" he protested, starting from his chair. "'Twill ruin me outright! The place is stripped,--you know it well, Sir Francis,--stripped bare and clean by these thieving rebel militia-men; bare as the back of your hand, I tell you! I--" But the captain put him down in brief. "Enough, Mr. Stair; we'll not constrain you against your will. But 'tis hinted at headquarters that you are but a fair-weather royalist at best--nay, that for some years back you have been as rebel as the rest in this nesting-place of traitors. As a friend--mind you, as a friend--I would advise you to find the wherewithal to carry out my Lord's commands. Do you take me, Mr. Stair?" The trembling old man fell back in his chair, nodding his "yes" dumbly like a marionette when the string has been jerked a thought too violently, and his weasel face was moist and clammy. I know not what double-dealing he would have been at before this, but it was surely something with the promise of a rope at the publishing of it. So he and his factor fell to ciphering on a bit of paper, reckoning ways and means, as I took it, while Falconnet was asking for more particular orders. "You'll have them from headquarters direct," said Stuart. "Oconostota will furnish carriers, a Cherokee escort, and guides. The rendezvous will be hereabouts, and your route will be the Great Trace." "Then we are to hold on all and wait still longer?" "That's the word: wait for the Indians and your cargo." Falconnet's oath was of impatience. "We've waited now a month and more like men with halters round their necks. The country is alive with rebels." Whereupon Captain Stuart began to explain at large how the northern route had been chosen for its very hazards, the better to throw the partizans off the scent. I listened, eager for every word, but when the horses stirred behind me I was set back upon the oft-recurrent under-thought of how the gloom did also hide a silent figure lying prone, with the three bridle reins knotted round its wrist.