"I can answer for it they will be true to any trust you may repose in them," my uncle said, and Percy gripped me by the hand that I might understand how well pleased he was at such words of praise. "It was not simply to bring the lads to your notice that I have thus introduced them, General; they have information of greatest importance."
General Marion turned toward us inquiringly, and in as few words as might be I told him of the encounter.
"A force of two thousand?" he said half to himself, and added as he looked me full in the eye. "Can you depend upon the truthfulness of the lad who made the boast?"
"Indeed we cannot, sir. I would have been inclined to doubt the entire story, had not forty or more appeared in response to Sam Lee's cries for help."
"Are you positive he spoke of Major Gainey as being in command?"
Instead of answering the question I looked toward my uncle, and he replied without hesitation:
"They are, General, if it please you to accept lads as young as they."
"It is the will and the courage, rather than the age, which we need, Major James, and unless I have made a mistake in reading their faces, these sons of the Widow Sumter may do men's work in the task which is set them."
Percy and I made our best salute, as can well be fancied and from that moment counted ourselves as being enlisted under that true general and valiant soldier, to whom the butcher Tarleton gave the name of "Swamp Fox."
The general, having acknowledged our salute, turned toward my uncle in such manner as gave us to understand that he wished to speak with him privately, and we withdrew a short distance, to where Gavin Witherspoon, an old acquaintance, was making ready for the eating a string of fish.
"Are you two lads come to see how soldiers live?" the old man asked with that peculiar grin which had earned for him the name of the "big mouthed."
"If we had, it would seem that we were come to the wrong place," Percy replied with a laugh. "Surely you are not counting yourself a soldier, Gavin Witherspoon?"
"I am allowin' I'll come as nigh to it as many who wear the king's uniform. It isn't always him who stands the stiffest that can bring down the most game, an' there's no need of my tellin' two lads by the name of Sumter that we of Williamsburg are not given to wastin' ammunition."