Daniel Baker College - The Trail Yearbook (Brownwood, TX)

Page 32 text:

AN ADVENTURE OF A REVOLUTIONARY SCOUT Lying in the shade of a huge oak was a young man clad in a rough brown uniform of an army scout. On the ground beside him were his canteen and a small paper of lunch, which he had received from a frendly mountain lady that morning. As he reclined slowly, eating his noon day meal, he re- viewed what he had done and planned. That morning he had left his company with order to discover the where- about of the enemy, and to learn as much about their movements and plans as he was able. Before daylight he had eaten breakfast in the home of a hospitable mountaineer. As he started on his way, the thoughtful wife had pressed into his hands enough food for another lunch. Since then he had traveled over rough mountain country and through dense woods, but he had met no one, nor had he seen signs of anyone having been in that section of the country. He was now in the vicinity of Charlotte, where Cornwallis was ex- pected to join his forces with what Tory forces Major Ferguson could collect in the country joining Mecklenburg. It was to watch this “Wily-fox” that he was commissioned, and it would take all of his resources to keep track of him and his movements. He had come up from the south and had not seen anything of the enemy. He decided to turn to the north-west and approach the town from that quarter, provided he could not locate Cornwallis before he reached Charlotte. Having decided on the course that he would follow, he hastily ate the last of his lunch, took a long drink from the canteen, and rose slowly to his It was a warm day in the early part of the summer of the last year of the war—one of those days when everything and everybody seem sleepy and lazy. John G--------tall, slender, and burned by the sun, enjoyed a big yawn and stretched himself as comfortably as a cat just aroused from her warm bed in the chimney corner. He aroused himself with a jump and whistled to his mare grazing near by. With one arm thrown around her neck and the other softly stroking her nose, he whispered to her, “Nance, old girl, it’s many a narrow escape we’ve had, but we’ve come through unhurt, and we’re ready for another ad- venture. Let’s find ’em, Nance, let’s find ’em, and carry word back to our General.” With these words he jumped lightly upon Nance’s back, and she, almost without guidance, headed toward the northwest. About three o’clock they came out on a well beaten road. John jump- ed from his horse and examined the tracks that were plainly visible. It ap- peared to him that a company of horsemen had traveled this road, going north, as late as that same morning. Whether they were “Red-coats” or Americans, he could not tell. At any rate, whoever they were, they would not stop to camp before dark and then he could see their campfire before running upon them; or, if they were not far in the advance of him, the dust