he cried, "come out here and hug me. Why, you look as if I were
your grandmother's ghost."

"And if you were," I answered, "you could not have surprised me more.
Where have you been?"

"At Jonesboro, acting the gallant with the widow, winning and losing
skins and cow-bells and land at rattle-and-snap, horse-racing with that
wild Mr. Jackson. Faith, he near shot the top of my head off because I
beat him at Greasy Cove."

I laughed, despite my anxiety.

"And Sevier?" I demanded.

"You have not heard how Sevier got off?" exclaimed Nick. "Egad, that
was a crowning stroke of genius! Cozby and Evans, Captains Greene and
Gibson, and Sevier's two boys whom you met on the Nollichucky rode over
the mountains to Morganton. Greene and Gibson and Sevier's boys hid
themselves with the horses in a clump outside the town, while Cozby and
Evans, disguised as bumpkins in hunting shirts, jogged into the town
with Sevier's racing mare between them. They jogged into the town, I
say, through the crowds of white trash, and rode up to the court-house
where Sevier was being tried for his life. Evans stood at the open door
and held the mare and gaped, while Cozby stalked in and shouldered
his way to the front within four feet of the bar, like a big, awkward
countryman. Jack Sevier saw him, and he saw Evans with the mare outside.
Then, by thunder, Cozby takes a step right up to the bar and cries
out, 'Judge, aren't you about done with that man?' Faith, it was like
judgment day, such a mix-up as there was after that, and Nollichucky
Jack made three leaps and got on the mare, and in the confusion Cozby
and Evans were off too, and the whole State of North Carolina couldn't
catch 'em then." Nick sighed. "I'd have given my soul to have been
there," he said.

"Come in," said I, for lack of something better.

"Cursed if you haven't given me a sweet reception, Davy," said he. "Have
you lost your practice, or is there a lady here, you rogue," and he
poked into the cupboard with his stick. "Hullo, where are you going
now?" he added, his eye falling on the saddle-bags.

I had it on my lips to say, and then I remembered Mr. Wharton's
injunction.

"I'm going on a journey," said I.

"When?" said Nick.

"I leave in about an hour," said I.

He sat down. "Then I leave too," he said.

"What do you mean, Nick?" I demanded.

"I mean that I will go with you," said he.

"But I shall be gone three months or more," I protested.

"I have nothing to