In a while, up comes the foremost trooper, draws rein, and pants out “Where’s he to?” “Who?” asks Joan, making out to be surprised. “Why, the lad whose mare thou’rt leadin’?” “Mile an’ half away by now.” “How’s that?” “Freshly horsed,” explains Joan. The troopers—they were all around her by this—swore ’twas a lie; but luckily, being down in the hollow, could not see over the next ridge. They began a string of questions all together: but at last a little tun bellied sergeant call’d “Silence!” and asked the girl, “did she loan the fellow a horse?” Here I will quote her again:— “‘Sir, to thee,’ I answer’d, ‘no loan at all, but fair swap for our Grey Robin.’ “‘That’s a lie,’ he says; ’an’ I won’t believe thee.’ “‘Might so well,’ says I; ‘but go to stable, an’ see for thysel’ (Never had grey horse to my name, Jack; but, thinks I, that’s _his’n_ lookout.)” They went, did these simple troopers, to look at the stable, and sure enough, there was no Grey Robin. Nevertheless, some amongst them had logic enough to take this as something less than proof convincing, and spent three hours and more ransacking the house and barn, and searching the tor and the moors below it. I learn’d too, that Joan had come in for some rough talk—to which she put a stop, as she told me, by offering to fight any man Jack of them for the buttons on his buffcoat. And at length, about sundown, they gave up the hunt, and road away over the moors toward Warleggan, having (as the girl heard them say) to be at Braddock before night. “Where is this Braddock?” “Nigh to Lord Mohun’s house at Boconnoc: seven mile away to the south, and seven mile or so from Bodmin, as a crow flies.” “Then go I must,” cried I: and hereupon I broke out with all the trouble that was on my mind, and the instant need to save these gallant gentlemen of Cornwall, ere two armies should combine against them. I told of the King’s letter in my breast, and how I found the Lord Stamford’s men at Launceston; how that Ruthen, with the vanguard of the rebels, was now at Liskeard, with but a bare day’s march between the two, and none but I to carry the warning. And “Oh, Joan!” I cried, “my comrade I left upon the road. Brighter courage and truer heart never man proved, and yet left by me in the rebels’ hands. Alas! that I could neither save nor help, but must still ride on: and here is the issue—to lie struck down within ten mile of my goal—I, that have traveled two hundred. And if the Cornishmen be not warned to give fight before Lord Stamford come up, all’s lost. Even now they be outnumber’d. So lift me, Joan, and set me astride Molly, and I’ll win to Bodmin yet.” “Reckon, Jack, thou’d best hand _me_ thy letter.” Now, I did not at once catch the intent of these words, so simply spoken; but stared at her like an owl. “There’s horse in stall, lad,” she went on, “tho’ no Grey Robin. Tearaway’s the name, and strawberry the color.”