ael stood on guard until
the boy John Bones returned with help from the upper valley. A dozen
men and boys completed the disarming of the band and that evening set
out with them on the south trail.

2

It is doubtful if this history would have been written but for an
accidental and highly interesting circumstance. In the first party
young Jack Irons rode a colt, just broken, with the girl captive, now
happily released. The boy had helped every one to get away; then there
seemed to be no ridable horse for him. He walked for a distance by the
stranger's mount as the latter was wild. The girl was silent for a
time after the colt had settled down, now and then wiping tears from
her eyes. By and by she asked:

"May I lead the colt while you ride?"

"Oh, no, I am not tired," was his answer.

"I want to do something for you."

"Why?"

"I am so grateful. I feel like the King's cat. I am trying to express
my feelings. I think I know, now, why the Indian women do the
drudgery."

As she looked at Him her dark eyes were very serious.

"I have done little," said he. "It is Mr. Binkus who rescued you. We
live in a wild country among savages and the white folks have to
protect each other. We're used to it."

"I never saw or expected to see men like you," she went on. "I have
read of them in books, but I never hoped to see them and talk to them.
You are like Ajax and Achilles."

"Then I shall say that you are like the fair lady for whom they fought."

"I will not ride and see you walking."

"Then sit forward as far as you can and I will ride with you," he
answered.

In a moment he was on the colt's back behind her. She was a comely
maiden. An authority no less respectable than Major Duncan has written
that she was a tall, well shaped, fun loving girl a little past sixteen
and good to look upon, "with dark eyes and auburn hair, the latter long
and heavy and in the sunlight richly colored"; that she had slender
fingers and a beautiful skin, all showing that she had been delicately
bred. He adds that he envied the boy who had ridden before and behind
her half the length of Tryon County.

It was a close association and Jack found it so agreeable that he often
referred to that ride as the most exciting adventure of his life.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Margaret Hare," she answered.

"How did they catch you?"

"Oh, they came suddenly and stealthily, as they do in the story books,
when we wer