CHAPTER V
A GREAT NAME
"Joseph Warren!"
That was a great name in those days. It was no wonder that the sight of it impressed Phil and Andy. With a sort of awe they read it, and their interest in the homeless, hunted lad who showed it to them increased greatly.
Phil Warrington knew Dr. Warren. With a thrilling kind of pride he recalled an encouraging word from the popular patriot one day, when he and his comrades were drilling on a vacant city lot in Boston. Phil felt that he was getting quite an experience as a young revolutionary patriot.
He recalled how Gen. Gage had listened patiently to the complaints of the serious, manly little delegation—how he had said quite earnestly to a brother officer at his side: "These sturdy young fellows show the mettle of their rugged sires—if there is ever any serious trouble these people mean to fight it out."
There were three names to conjure by in Boston and its neighborhood in those stirring days,—Joseph Warren, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. These men were the leaders in every patriotic move of the times. They were the men who, because of their great influence and determination, were approached with bribes, threats and persecutions by Tory emissaries and enemies.
Especially was Dr. Warren the idol of the patriots. In all but official title he was practically commander in chief of the sturdy New England "Sons of Liberty," the patiently waiting "Minute Men"—all those earnest, enthusiastic militia organizations whom the great genius of Gen. George Washington was so soon and successfully to merge into the Continental Army.
Little wonder was it that Andy Sabine felt as if he was getting to be of some importance in his little world, and that Phil felt a decided thrill of enthusiasm at being directly concerned in an affair in which the notable patriot, Warren, was interested.
All this was leading Phil's mind into an ever-increasing vortex of speculation and excitement. Every day and its every event of late seemed links in a strong chain of circumstances, all bearing more or less on the spirit of war that was in the very air.
"That's your letter, is it?" inquired Andy in his impetuous, irrepressible way.
Before the refugee could answer something startled him. He glanced at a fringe of timber beyond the house. There was some movement there. Phil made out Jasper Bram's hired man hauling cord wood on a sledge. The strange boy seemed aroused at the proximity of others. He dodged quickly to the rear of the stone shed, out of range of the man and horse in the distance. Then he beckoned to Phil. In a very flustered voice he said:
"I can't stay here. I will get into trouble if I do, but I would like to see you again."
"Then come along with us," directed Phil. "We'll cut out of range of these diggings across to Andy Sabine's barn."
"Go to town—in daylight!" exclaimed the strange boy in dismay. "I don't dare to. Is that man out of sight? Yes I must get away from here. Good-bye, and thank you. Say," added the lad, dropping his voice as a new thought came into his mind, "You know where the old cooper shop is?"
"Down the river, yes," nodded Phil.
"I'll be there until after dark to-night."
"I'll come and see you there before dark," said Phil.
The fugitive sped away at this. He cast many a furtive look about him as he did so. Bram's hired man was now shut out from view by intervening hills, but the runner never relaxed his speed and went over a rise in the landscape like a fleet hare bounding for cover.
"H'm!" observed Andy, approaching his friend. "On the jump again, eh? He's a lively one. What did you let him go for?"
"What right have we to stop him?" submitted Phil mildly—"Especially after that document he showed us."
"That's so, but it's—it's worrying!" cried Andy in a desperate sort of a way. "What was he saying to you, Phil?"
"Oh, he is to see us later," explained Phil.
"Good!" vociferated Andy eagerly—"when? where?"
"That's all arranged. That passport of his calls on all loyal patriots to assist him when possible. So I think the first thing for us to do is to get up a roaring good meal for him, and carry it to his hideout."
"Oh, he has a hideout, then, has he?" persisted the inquisitive Andy.
"Yes, and we are to meet him there about dusk."
Phil and Andy got some water from the well and put out the smoking window frame in the shed, and reached home without any further adventures. There was a good deal that was inexplicable in the occurrences of the afternoon, but they trusted to later expected developments to clear the situation. Andy had free range at home, and within an hour the chums were on the march again. They carried with them a basket well filled with eatables.
The old cooper shop was a landmark of Concord. It had once been a grist mill, but now in moderate weather was used as a work shop by an old villager, who made kegs, barrels and vats. It was a good hiding place in winter, for it was not much in use except during the warm months of the year.
The boys crossed the bridge over the river. That stream was open. Ponds and ditches had frozen up, but the river showed clear water and a steady current, with occasional floating cakes of ice.
It was getting on towards dusk when Phil and Andy reached the old mill. It had windows supplied with wooden bars and a great high door. The latter they found closed.
"Hello, inside there!" shouted Andy, knocking vigorously on the stout planking. Phil whistled sharply once or twice. The door ran in a groove. It was rolled open about a foot.
"It's us," announced Phil, as a cautious head protruded.
"Oh, all right," answered the strange boy. "Squeeze in quick. Look around first though, will you? Weren't followed? Didn't see anybody lurking about, did you?" he inquired quite anxiously.
"For a fact, we didn't think about it," replied Andy. "What are you afraid of, neighbor, anyhow?"
"Seems, nothing—I am," replied the boy soberly enough. "Principally, I am afraid of Jasper Bram."
"Knows you, does he?" interrogated Andy.
"Only too well—he and his brother, and that son of his, Greg. I've kept out of his clutches so far. I wouldn't like to get into them now, just as I am going away from here with my work done."
"What work?" projected Andy forcibly, his eager soul in his face, his eyes sparkling with animation.
The strange boy gave him a keen and then a meditative glance. He seemed studying seriously some difficult problem in his mind. Phil saw that he was troubled. The Boston youth, who was a natural leader of boys, understood that they were dealing with a lad in a strained position, his nerves all on edge, filled with alarm, on the perpetual jump and go, and might be scared off the track again by a suspicious word or an impulse of timidity.
"See here!" cried Phil—heartily, swinging the basket in his hand, "never mind Jasper Bram, just now. You take a good solid feed, and then do your talking if you want to."
The face of the strange boy changed quickly. His hungry eyes darted at the basket with avidity. He led the way into a small compartment where there were working benches and boxes to sit on.
There was just enough of the sunset light left to allow the boys to see one another. The strange lad acted embarrassed as Phil made a spread of the wholesome, substantial food brought from the Sabine larder. Then as his eyes ranged over the mince pie, cold pork and beans, half chicken, and some nicely buttered brown bread, they filled with tears.
"Thanks," was all he could say in a choked, sobbing tone.
"That's four times you've said it," rallied Andy brusquely. "Once will do. Nice fellow you are, hanging around half-famished, when the club would have treated you like a prince after a sight of that passport of yours."
"I can't show it to everybody, you know," murmured the boy.
"If you had shown it to us before you did, we would have made it easy sledding for you here at Concord," declared Andy heartily. "Now you have shown it to us, suppose you enlighten us as to a few points that are burning me up with curiosity."
"Let a fellow eat, won't you, Andy?" admonished Phil, and he drew Andy to one side under the pretence of showing him an old cooperage tool lying on a bench, so as to afford the strange boy a chance to eat in comfort.
"Say, he was hungry, wasn't he, now!" whispered Andy.
"He acts it, I should say," responded Phil, who tried to relieve any embarrassment on the part of the boy by keeping up a casual conversation with Andy. The strange lad made him feel sad and glad both at the same time,—glad to see him enjoy his meal, sad to realize from the way he partook of the same that the poor wayfarer must have been half-starved to death.
"That was good, I tell you!" finally exclaimed the boy in a tone of mingled contentment and gratitude.
"And, now what is the next best thing we can do for you?" inquired Andy impetuously, hot on the trail of information.
"You can do something for me, for a fact," spoke the boy seriously, and he looked out of the window across the dreary landscape and down at the river in a doubtful way. "I don't want to risk staying here any longer than I have to, so I won't take up much of your time. My name is Burt Noble."
"Glad to know you," nodded Andy airily. "Wanted to know you before, but you wouldn't come close enough to hand."
"I'll explain that," went on Burt Noble, still seriously, and taking no notice of Andy's flippancy. "You can guess that I am no Tory from that passport. Dr. Warren knows me and trusts me. It came right, and it was right for me to find out what the Britishers were up to, and that was why I seemed training with the Gage troops in Boston."
"We understand," nodded Phil encouragingly.
"Did you come down here to find out something for Dr. Warren, too?" questioned Andy boldly.
"Why, yes, in a way," answered Burt with directness. "I had some private business of my own to attend to, and it all seemed to fit in together."
"Jasper Bram, your secrecy, that puff of powder!"—began Andy. "Oh, say by the way—that puff of powder, what was the mystery of that maneuver? And say too," added Andy with accumulating excitement, "that fire in Bram's stone shed. Old Jasper ran from it yelling out something about 'being blown to a thousand pieces.' Why—say, why?"
"Because he thought there was danger of being blown to a thousand pieces," replied Burt Noble, with a faintly humorous smile on his face.
"How was that, now?" persisted Andy.
"He believed that down in the cellar of the shed there was enough gunpowder to blow the whole farm to atoms."
Andy looked "stumped," and Phil was interested and startled.
"Bram ought to know if it was so," murmured Andy.
"He thought he did," said Burt. "Yes, Jasper Bram had reason to believe that there were four kegs of gunpowder under the stone shed."
"Four kegs of powder!" shouted Andy.
"Yes."
"What in the world was Jasper Bram doing with all that ammunition?" cried Andy in sheer bewilderment.
Burt Noble did not reply for a moment or two. He looked anxious, undecided and thoughtful. Phil read correctly from his intelligent, expressive face that he was debating within himself how much he should tell them. Finally Burt said:
"If I can't trust good fellows like you whom I know to be true-blue fellows, whom can I trust? Here's the whole story in brief. As you must guess, I have been trying to help Dr. Warren by keeping tab on the doings and plans of the Britishers. I don't like the sound of the word spy, but, if it fits me, all right, it's in a glorious cause, isn't it? I don't know whether you know it or not, but Gen. Gage has been getting ready for a long time to crush out liberty at one sudden, powerful blow. They haven't been working in Boston only. They have had emissaries out all through the colonies, in little towns, sending them information and ready to act as soon as the word is given."
"How do you mean?" inquired the intensely interested Andy, his eyes as big as saucers.
"Well, for one thing a lot of Tories have been buying up all the ammunition they could find. I suppose you know what it would mean if war began, with all our military stores seized or destroyed by the Britishers."
"Whew!" whistled Andy in a long-continued series of trills. "I guess I begin to understand! I heard my father talking something about that."
"I found out that Peter Bram, at Farmington, who is a brother of Jasper Bram, was making a regular business of going around secretly and forming little parties of Tories to help in the general scheme," proceeded Burt. "I left Boston to sort of look up Peter Bram on my own account, too. He was away from town, so I came on here to Concord, hoping to find what I wanted from Jasper Bram. Well, I discovered that he had been driving around the country—or had sent that precious son of his, Gregory, visiting stores and buying up powder and shot. That sent me on the trail of doing some good work for my country. Jasper Bram knows me, yes, indeed he does," continued Burt, with a serious shake of the head. "He can hold me, too, if he catches me. He nearly caught me snooping around his house. He did catch me, for a fact, to-day, as you know."
"What has he got against you—what power has he over you?" inquired Phil, somewhat puzzled.
"Why, he knows that I am a bound boy—a runaway apprentice from his brother, Peter Bram."
"Oh, is that so?"
"And he sent Greg lickety-switch to town to get a constable to take me in charge. That would mean going back into the old slave life with that cruel brother of his."
"What about the powder, though—get to that!" urged the impatient Andy.
"Simply this," replied Burt quickly: "Jasper Bram gathered up four kegs of it, and had it stored in the cellar of the stone shed—a ready-made arsenal for the Britishers, if they ever got so far as Concord in their raids. Even if they never used it at all, it was so much out of the way of us 'rebels,' you see."
"I don't wonder he was scared into fits when you set fire to the shed," observed Phil, "but weren't you afraid, too, of being 'blown into a thousand pieces?'"
"Not at all," replied Burt calmly. "Jasper Bram didn't know it, but there wasn't an ounce of powder in that cellar."
"Eh, how was that?" inquired Andy, with a stare of perplexity.
"I had removed it."
"You—you!" stammered Andy.
"Had taken it away. It took me parts of three nights to do it, without disturbing the Brams or leaving any trace of my secret midnight operation. Yes, that gunpowder is all safe out of the clutches of Jasper Bram, although he little dreams it. And I tested the powder, too, as you saw on the hilltop."
"Good! hooray! say, Burt Noble, you're a hero!" shouted the vociferous Andy, slapping the lad enthusiastically on the shoulder. "Phil, this is action, real and brisk. My! I wish I could do a thing like that! Burt Noble, you're smart—yes, you're just grand!"
"I hope it all comes out right," said Burt. "There's a lot to do yet. I think I have told you all I ought to."
"But the powder?" asked Andy. "What became of that?"
For answer Burt Noble drew a sealed envelope from his pocket. It was getting quite dusk. He went to the end of a bench, lit a candle, and came back to the boys.
"My orders," he explained, "were to return to headquarters and report any discovery of importance, where it was of local interest, though, I was also to advise a leading patriot in the vicinity. Here is a letter," and he handed the envelope to Andy.
"Why," exclaimed the latter, peering at the superscription by the aid of the candle—"this is addressed to my father!"
"Yes," nodded Burt. "Be very careful of it. It tells where I have hidden the powder—where it can be found by the people who need it worst, when the first gun is fired."
"Hello!" shouted Andy sharply just then—"that sounds like it now!" for of a sudden at the big front door of the old mill there rang out a vivid, echoing—
BANG!