Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/25

 Dust and the shouts of the pack-horse tenders filled the air. Close behind Lachlan a driver's whip cracked like a pistol shot, and at once the chestnut mare stood on her hind legs, capering madly. For an instant it seemed that she must bolt straight into the midst of the pack train; but the thin-lipped, slender young man on her back whirled her sideways, curbed her, gentled her, kept her dancing in the small open space between the road and the holly hedge, and after a minute she was calm again.

"Middlin' good, boy!" a mud-stained pack driver shouted. "Ye're a rider! How far to Charles Town?"

"Fight miles," Lachlan answered, and said no more. He knew these traders' caravans of old. The trader himself, if he rode with his train, was often decent enough, and the hunters, who supplied meat and took charge in case of trouble on the road, were generally steady men. But the drivers were a hard lot, perhaps the worst in the New World. With them it was best to have no dealing, no talk; and especially was this true when a pack train drew near to civilization once more after a journey of perhaps four hundred miles over the lonely wilderness trails.

Lachlan knew this and held his tongue, regardless of considerable rough bantering, meanwhile keeping a tight rein on his mare. There were others who knew it not so well. Suddenly from the head of the column burst forth a tumult of oaths, while at the same moment the caravan stopped, thrown into confusion by the unexpected halt.