In truth it looked as if Whitestone’s second thought were right. We began to gain without the necessity of urging our horses. Chudleigh already had driven his own animal to exhaustion. I doubted if the race would be a matter of two miles. I wondered why he did not try a shot at us with his pistols. Bullets are often great checks to the speed of pursuers, and Chudleigh must have known it. At the end of a mile we were gaining so rapidly that we could have reached the fugitive with a pistol ball, but I was averse to such rude methods, doubly so since he showed no intent on his own part to resort to them. A half mile ahead of us I saw a small house in a field by the roadside, but I took no thought of it until Chudleigh reached a parallel point in the road; then we were surprised to see him leap to the ground, leave his horse to go where it would, climb the fence, and rush toward the house. He pushed the door open, ran in, and closed it behind him. I concluded that he had given up all hope of escape except through a desperate defense, and I made hasty disposition of my small command. I was to approach the house from one side, Whitestone from another, and Adams from a third. We hitched our horses and began our siege of the house, from which no sound issued. I approached from the front, using a fence as shelter. When I was within half a pistol shot the door of the house was thrown open with much force and rudeness, and a large woman, a cocked musket in her hand and anger on her face, appeared. She saw me, and began to berate me rapidly and wrathfully, at the same time making threatening movements with the musket. She cried out that she had small use for those who were Tories now and Americans then, and robbers and murderers always. I explained that we were American soldiers in pursuit of an escaped prisoner of importance who had taken refuge in her house, and commanded her to stand aside and let us pass. For answer she berated me more than ever, saying that it was but a pretext about a prisoner, and her husband was a better American than we. That put a most uncomfortable suspicion in my mind, and, summoning Whitestone, we held parley with her. “You have pursued my husband until there is scarce a breath left in his body,” she said. Whereupon, having pacified her to some extent, we went into the house and found that she spoke the truth. Her husband was stretched upon a bed quite out of breath, in part from his gallop and more from fright. We could scarce persuade him that we were not those outlaws who belonged to neither army but who preyed upon whomsoever they could. Making such brief apologies as the time allowed, we mounted our horses and resumed the search. “It was a mistake,” said Whitestone. I admitted that he spoke the truth, and resolved I would trust no more to intuitions, which are sent but to deceive us.