And then applause broke out from the crowd; but the High Sheriff, who left the room with me, shrugged his shoulders and said: "If they had half of the courage of that Scot they would not be loafing around here, applauding James Rodolph. I am tired of it; I am going to resign and go to the front." He was as good as his word, for that very day he resigned the office of High Sheriff of the county of Cecil, packed his saddle-bags, gathered some volunteers about him, and rode away to the North, becoming in time a noted officer. But it was not until the month of August of that year that I was ready to follow him and felt equal to the length of the journey. On the night of the day before I took my departure I called John Cotton and ordered him to saddle Toby. John Cotton received the order with wide-open eyes, as it was growing somewhat late. "Fo' de Lord's sake, Mars Jim, what do you want Toby fo'? It's after ten o'clock." "Ask no questions, you black rascal, and bring Toby around in a hurry." Then his eyes fell on a cluster of red roses on my table, and a broad grin crept from ear to ear. "Sartin, Mars Jim, sartin;" and he was out of the door before my flying boot could repay the impertinence of that grin. A few minutes later I slipped out of the house to the stables, and, mounting Toby, was soon riding out of the silent town, having hit that rascal John Cotton across the shoulders with my whip for the snickering laugh he could not restrain as I was riding off. Have you ever ridden by the silent river after the night has fallen, and when it is far advanced? The great trees, rising far above you like the vaulted arch of a cathedral, overhanging the path down which you ride; the smooth flowing waters of the river, the towering dark mass on the farther shore, and over all the glorious moon shining down flooding everything with its silvery light, weird and fantastic, glinting now like polished steel upon the waters, now deepening the shadows of the forest, or flooding again with its glorious radiance some wide and sweeping stretch of water. And then, the unearthly silence of it all, the mournful howl of the wolf in the hills, and the piercing shrill cry of the wildcat, like that of a child tortured by the demons of hell; then the horror of its beauty, its stillness and its loneliness, comes over you; nervous chills become distinctly apparent, and you put spurs to your horse and ride on more rapidly, and the night is broken first by your whistle and then by your song. So it was, as I rode by the banks of the Elk, that night in early August, and my voice rang across the waters, as I sang the old Highland ballad: The Gordons cam', and the Gordons ran, And they were stark and steady, And aye the word among them a' Was, Gordons, keep you ready.