dars, and the many locust trees let fall their
small yellow leaves. As the sun mounted the heat increased, and with it
the interminable, monotonous, and trying _zirr, zirr_, of the underworld
on blade and bush. He rode with a dark face, and with lines of anger
between his brows. It had come to him like a chance spark to a mine that
Ludwell Cary was not at Greenwood, was yet upon the road before him. He
knew day and hour when the other had left Richmond, and there had been
more than time to make his journey.

Before him, on the lower ground, a belt of high and deep woods
proclaimed a watercourse, and he presently arrived beside a shrunken
stream. Here was a mill, and the miller and a man or two were apparent
in the doorway. The ford lay a hundred yards beyond, and on the far
side of the stream the river road and the main road branched. Travellers
paused as a matter of course to give and take the time of day, and now
the miller, dusty and white, came out into the road. "Morning, morning,
Mr. Rand! From Richmond, sir? So we couldn't hang Aaron Burr, after all.
Well, he ought to have been, that's all I've got to say!"

"Give me a gourd of water, will you, Bates? This dust is choking."

"'Tis that, sir. But we'll have a storm before the day is over. There's
a deal of travel just now. Mr. Cary of Greenwood passed a short while
ago."

A negro brought a dripping gourd. Rand put it to his lips and drank the
cool water. "Which road," he asked, as he gave back the gourd,--"which
road did Mr. Cary take? The main road or the river road?"

The miller looked over his shoulder. "Jim and Bob and Shirley, which
road did Mr. Cary take?"

"I didn't notice."

"Reckon he took the main road, Bates."

"I wasn't looking, but you could hear his horse's hoofs, and that
wouldn't have been so on the river road."

"'Twuz de main road, sah."

Rand and Young Isham went on, down by the mill and along the bank to the
clear, brown, shallow ford, crossed, and paused beneath a guide-post
upon the crest of the further bank. The trees hid the mill. Before them
stretched the main road, to the right dipped between fern and under
arching boughs the narrow, broken river road. "If he went this way,"
said Rand slowly, "I'll go that. Young Isham--"

"Yaas, marster."

"The mare's spent. No need to give her this rough travelling. Take the
main road and take it slowly. Let her walk, and when you reach Red
Fields, stop and have her fed. I'll go and go fa