position on the rock, where he had been seen by the passing glance of Henry Wharton, until evening had begun to shroud the surrounding objects in darkness. It was with difficulty that he had curbed his impatience until the obscurity of night should render his moving free from danger. He had not, however, completed a fourth of his way to his own residence, when his quick ear distinguished the tread of the approaching horse. Trusting to the increasing darkness, he determined to persevere. By crouching, and moving quickly along the surface of the ground, he hoped to [Pg 40]escape unseen. Captain Lawton was too much engrossed in conversation to suffer his eyes to indulge in their usual wandering; and the peddler, perceiving by the voices that the enemy he most feared had passed, yielded to his impatience, and stood erect, in order to make greater progress. The moment his body rose above the shadow of the ground it was seen, and the chase commenced. For a single instant Birch was helpless, his blood curdling in his veins at the imminence[61] of the danger, and his legs refusing their natural and necessary office. But it was only for a minute; casting his pack where he stood, and instinctively tightening the belt he wore, the peddler betook himself to flight. He knew that by bringing himself in line with his pursuers and the wood, his form would be lost to sight. This he soon effected, and he was straining every nerve to gain the wood itself, when several horsemen rode by him but a short distance on his left, and cut him off from this place of refuge. The peddler threw himself on the ground as they came near him, and was passed unseen. But delay now became too dangerous for him to remain in that position. He accordingly rose, and still keeping in the shadow of the wood, along the skirts of which he heard voices crying to each other to be watchful, he ran with incredible speed in a parallel line, but in an opposite direction, to the march of the dragoons.

[Pg 40]

At this instant the voice of Lawton rang through the valley, shouting:

“Harvey Birch!—take him, dead or alive!”

Fifty pistols lighted the scene, and the bullets whistled in every direction around the head of the devoted peddler.

A feeling of despair seized his heart, and in the bitterness of that moment he exclaimed:

“Hunted like a beast of the forest!”

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