ross the Vlaie
I could see dark spots moving along the Dead Water, and here and there
a distant rifle glimmering as the sun struck it. Now and then a faint
shout was borne to our ears as we halted, dripping and panting in the
birches to reconnoiter some open swale ahead, or some cranberry-bog
crimsoning under the October sun.

We swam the marshy creek miles to the west, coming out presently into a
rutty wagon-trail, which I knew ran south to Mayfield; but we dared not
use it, so steered the dripping horse southeast, chancing rather to
cross Frenchman's Creek, four miles above Varicks, and so, by a circle
bearing east and south, reaching the Broadalbin trail, or some safe
road between Galway and Perth, or, if driven to it, making for Saratoga
as a last resort.

My face was burned deep red, and I was soaked from neck to heels, so
that my moccasins rubbed and chafed at every step. The girl had sat her
saddle while the horse swam, so that her legs only were wet. As for the
Oneida, his oiled and painted skin shed water like the plumage of a
duck. Lord knows, we left a trail broad and wet enough for even a
Hessian to follow; and for that reason dared not halt north of
Frenchman's Creek or short of Vanderveer's grist-mill.

As I plodded on, rifle atrail, I began to comprehend the full import of
what had occurred since the day before, when I, with soul full of
bitterness, had left Burke's Inn. Was it only a day ago? By Heaven, it
seemed a year since I had looked upon Elsin Grey! And what a change in
fortune had come upon us in these two score hours! Free to wed now--if
we dared accept the heart-broken testimony of this poor girl--if we
dared deny the perjured testimony of a dishonored magistrate, leagued
with his fellow libertine, who, thank God, had at length learned
something of the fury he used on others. Strange that in all this war I
had never laid a rifle level save at him; strange that I had never seen
blood shed in anger, through all these battle years, except the blood
that now dried, clotting on my cheek-bone, where his shoulder-buckle
had cut me in the struggle. His spurs, too, had caught in the skirt of
my hunting-shirt, tearing it to the fringed hem, and digging a furrow
across my instep; and the moccasin on that foot was stiff with blood.

Ah, if I might only have brought him off; if I might only have carried
this guilty man to Johnstown! Yet I should have known that Sir John's
men were likely to be within hai