For all he was so gaunt and thin, and full twenty years or more my senior, he was a pretty handful. 'Twas much like trying to catch a fall out of some piece of steel-wired mechanism. None the less, after some wild stampings and strivings in which the old man all but made good his promise to put me in the creek, I took him unawares with a Cornishman's trick--a cross-buttock shifted suddenly to a shoulder-lift--which sent him flying overhead to land all abroad in the soft clay of the landslide. The effect of this little triumph was magical and wholly unlooked for. When he had gathered himself and set his limbs in order, Ephraim Yeates sat up and thrust out a claw-like hand. "Put it there, stranger," he said. "I reckon ez how that settles it. Old Eph Yeates'll share fair, powder and lead, parched corn _and_ pan-meat with the man that can flop him that-away. Whilst ye're a-needing a friend in the big woods--a raw-meat-eating Injun-skinner that can jest or'narily whop his weight in wildcats--why, old Eph's your man; from now on, _if_ not sooner." And in this wise began an alliance the like of which, for true-blue loyalty on this old borderer's part, these colder-hearted times of yours, my dears, will never see. As you would guess, I gripped the hand of pledging most heartily, pulling the old man to his feet and protesting it was but a trick he would never let another play on him. And then we four fell upon the deer's meat which was by this time--not cooked, to be sure, but seared a little on the outside in true hunter fashion. While we ate, Richard spoke freely of our intendings; and in return Ephraim Yeates was able to confirm Mr. Gilbert Stair's war news to the letter. For all his Tory bias and prejudice, it seemed that Margery's father had spoken by the book. Gates' army was crushed and scattered to the four winds; Thomas Sumter's free-lances had been attacked, worsted and driven, with the leader himself so sorely wounded that he was carried from the field in a blanket slung between the horses of two of his men; and, as was to be expected, the Tories were up and arming in all the north country. Truly, the prospect was most gloomy and the outlook for the patriot cause was to the full as desperate as King George himself could wish. "But you, Ephraim, and the chief, here; are you two running away like all the others?" Richard would ask. The old hunter growled his denial between the mouthfuls of scarce-warmed meat. "I reckon ez how 'tis t'other way 'round; we're sort o' camping on the redcoats' trail, ez I allow. Ain't we, Chief, hey?" The Catawba's assent was a guttural "Wah!" and Ephraim Yeates went on to explain.