"You will speak with me though!" Gavin said, seizing the bridle of my horse as if fearing I was about to ride away. "In what direction are you two lads going?"
"That we may not say," Percy replied quickly. "It is enough that we are acting upon General Marion's orders."
"That is as I suspected," Gavin cried, shaking his fist at Percy as if the lad had proven himself guilty of some serious crime. "You would slip away from the old man, believing yourselves so wondrous brave that he isn't fit to join in any adventure however trifling?"
"Now you are talking wildly, Gavin Witherspoon," I said, losing my patience, for, knowing we had but little time at our disposal, I was fretted by what seemed to me no more than folly. "We have been entrusted with a duty which must be performed immediately, and may not stand here parleying with you over trifling matters."
"It is my intention you shall remain until I can have speech with General Marion, or failing him, with Major James."
"Why should we wait for that?" Percy asked, leaping into the saddle, and as he did so the old man seized the bridle of his horse also.
"Because I am counting on going with you. I promised your mother six months or more ago that when you two lads were minded to turn soldiers I would keep an eye upon you, and now has come the time when I must fulfil the pledge, or write myself down a liar."
I knew enough of the old man's character to understand that we could not browbeat him into loosing his hold of the bridle, and was not minded to ride over him. Therefore said with as much of patience as I could assume:
"So that you move quickly, we will wait until you can speak with either officer you name; but remember, Gavin, we are under orders to set off without delay."
Until this moment, strange as it may seem, I had entirely lost sight of the fact that we were virtually unarmed, and now I realized the folly of setting out so wholly unprepared.
"We must have ammunition if nothing more," I said hurriedly, "and while you are gone in search of the general, I will set about procuring it. Therefore the time spent in waiting for you will not be wasted."
Gavin Witherspoon now seemed to have every confidence that we would not slip away from him, and hurried off toward the other end of the encampment, while I went from one acquaintance to another in search of powder and ball.