The old woman was furiously angry when she heard of the affair.
"I wish I'd been a little quicker," she said, "and dere wouldn't a been a red spot on him." Uncle Braddock didn't know exactly what she meant; but he wished so, too.
Tony didn't want a large party.

He chose four men who could be depended upon, and they started out that evening.
It was evident that Mason knew how to keep himself out of sight, for he had been in the vicinity a week or more--as Tony discovered, after a visit to Aunt Matilda--and no white person had seen him.
But Tony thought he knew the country quite as well as George Mason did, and he felt sure he should find him.
His party searched the vicinity quite thoroughly that night, starting from Tom Riley's tobacco barn; but they saw nothing of their man; and in the morning they made the discovery that Mason had borrowed one of Riley's horses, without the knowledge of its owner, and had gone off, north of the mica mine.

Some negroes had seen him riding away.
So Tony and his men took horses and rode away after him.

Each of them carried his gun, for they did not know in what company they might find Mason.

A man who steals horses is generally considered, especially in the country, to be wicked enough to do anything.
At a little place called Jordan's cross-roads, they were sure they had come upon him.