Having been conducted up a narrow stairway, he was led along a corridor and ushered into a large, bare apartment whose wooden door opened thereupon. But if this apartment was bare as to its wooden walls and floor and ceiling, it was far from empty, being occupied already by half a score of men, some of whom were of the party of prisoners that had come with Dick. The guard now closed the door and fastened it on the outside, Dick having been the last prisoner lodged.

Dick and his roommates had of floor space barely sufficient for all to lie down at once, and of light they had only what came from a single window, which looked across the jail-yard to some rear out-buildings and gardens appertaining to houses in the street beyond. The unpainted wood that encased the cell was interrupted only by the window and in certain places where the inside of the stone outer wall of the prison was visible. There were in the cell two large wooden pails, which were removed and returned once a day.

Regularly each day the door opened to admit men who brought water, bread or biscuit, and sometimes porridge or stew or other food; and the prisoners were now and then taken, singly or in small parties, to walk in the yard. They were made by their guards to suppose themselves recognized not as prisoners of war but as rebels or traitors, and to consider the slightest acts of consideration towards them as unmerited privileges. As the days passed, it became manifest that Dick received fewer such privileges than fell to any of his fellow prisoners. He promptly attributed this to the influence of the Irish officer.

Did that officer, Dick asked himself, know the story of the miniature? Probably not, or he would have made some attempt, on Blagdon's behalf, to obtain it. Such an attempt would doubtless have failed, however, as was shown in the search made of Dick's person on his capture, a search which had not disclosed the picture. For Dick, to be ready against the chance of war, had encased the keepsake in a tight-fitting silken bag, which he had then concealed in his plentiful back hair, fastening it by means of tiny cords entwined with locks of hair and with the ribbons that tied his queue. There it remained during his imprisonment.

Of the thirty prisoners taken by the British in the battle, only a few were in Dick's cell, the others being confined in other apartments in the jail. Among Dick's roommates were some citizens of Boston, in durance for various alleged offences against the royal government. One was charged with having drawn plans of British fortifications, another with having given intelligence to the rebels by means of correspondence smuggled through the lines, another with having had firearms concealed in his house,—the people having, on unanimous vote of town meeting, delivered up their weapons on April 27th. A printer was held under the accusation of having published seditious matter, and one childlike old gentleman pined in the cell because he was said to have made signals to the rebels from a church steeple.

This last-mentioned person, a mild, bewigged individual, his features rendered sharply angular by age, spent his time sitting in a corner of the cell, his eyes fixed distressedly on vacancy, his lips now and then opening to utter a childish whimper of protest against his situation. The printer knew this old gentleman, and gave Dick an account of him. He was, it appeared, a retired merchant and ship-owner, who, at a time when people were frequently ascending to roofs to view the doings of the besieging Yankees, had climbed to a church steeple, on being bantered by some jocular fellows who had cast doubts on his ability for such exertion. The gesticulations with which he had called attention to his success were taken by some prominent Tories to be designed for the information of the rebels outside the city. Denunciation and imprisonment had speedily followed. The printer, although he had no sympathy for the old man, whom he pronounced a rank Tory, said that the charge was all the more absurd for the very reason of the prisoner's Toryism, which captivity had not extinguished. When the old gentleman came out of his state of staring and moaning, as he infrequently did, it was to deplore articulately the rebellion that had got him into trouble, and to curse the rebels who were responsible. "Though he has enemies among the Tories," said the printer, "he has friends among them also, and it is quite likely he will be released as soon as General Gage takes time to consider his case."

But July came and went, and the old Tory still lingered in prison, growing constantly more fretful in his active moments, more trance-like in his passive ones, more feeble and more attenuated. Meanwhile, Dick suffered exasperatingly from the heat, confinement, vile air, want of sleep, and lack of exercise. His wound, slight as it was, was slow in recovery, because of the bad conditions of his prison life; yet he scarcely heeded it, so insignificant it was in comparison with the wounds and other ailments of some of his fellow prisoners. One of these, in whose thigh a grape-shot had torn a hideous gash that finally became insupportable to more senses than one, was declared by the surgeon to require amputation, and the operation was consequently performed in the prison, little to the sufferer's immediate relief, although he ultimately recovered. Accounts came, through guards and surgeon's assistants, of similar operations in the jail, not all of which were as successful as that performed on Dick's cell-mate.

Fevers and numerous internal disorders assailed Dick and his comrades, and their cell, in its half light by day and in its black darkness by night, was the lodging of enfeebled wretches who sat or lay in close contact on the floor, thrown by pain or restlessness into every conceivable attitude. Accustomed as he was to outdoor air, and deprived, as he came to be, of a breath of it, as well as of all exercise, Dick began early in August to lose vitality with alarming rapidity. He became as thin and as sharp of feature as the old Tory himself. His exclusion from the occasional outings in the prison yard became a theme of general talk in the cell.

One day the surgeon examined Dick's wound, assuming as he did so a kind of grave frown, and uttering certain ominous ejaculations to himself, his manifestations having, to Dick's keen intelligence, the appearance of being put on for a purpose. Later, the same day, through a good-natured guard, the prisoners received two pieces of news. The first was that the new commander-in-chief of the rebels, Washington, who had arrived at Cambridge early in July, had threatened retaliation for any ill-treatment of American prisoners, and was taking measures that must eventually result in the exchange of those now in the jail. The second was that the old Tory's friends were working vigorously on his behalf, and that an order of release from General Gage might soon be expected. To every one's surprise, the old gentleman heard this information with stupid indifference.

The next day, the surgeon returned, accompanied by the Irish officer, and made another examination of Dick's wound. This done, the surgeon turned to the officer, and said, in a kind of forced tone and shamefaced manner, as if he were acting a part he despised, "Amputation will be necessary in this case, sir."

"Indeed?" said the officer, without even a serious pretence of surprise. "Then let it be done immediately."

"Immediately, the devil!" cried Dick. "Cut my leg off? Why, there's nothing the matter with it! I walked on it all the way to this prison!"

"My good man," said the officer, loftily, "you don't know what is best for you. It's our duty to care for you, even against your own will. Don't double up your fists! You'll only hurt yourself by resisting. We shall use force, for your own welfare, if need be." The officer left the cell, and the surgeon briefly told Dick to be ready to be taken down-stairs in half an hour, by which time preparations would be made for the operation in the room used for such purposes; then he followed the officer.

Before Dick could recover from his bewilderment, or his comrades could offer other than expressions of indignant amazement, the cell door again opened, and the friendly guard came in and whispered to the printer that some of the Tory's friends were down-stairs with a coach and with an order for the old gentleman's release. The guard had been sent up-stairs to break the news to the Tory and to make him so presentable, if possible, that his friends might not have too much cause to complain of the effects upon him of his imprisonment. The guard, knowing the old gentleman's state, preferred to entrust the news-breaking to the superior delicacy and tact of the printer, and, having easily engaged the latter to perform it, went from the cell to wait in the corridor.

The printer, glancing at the old man and supposing him to be asleep, rapidly confided to his fellow prisoners what the guard had said, and then stepped over to the Tory and shook him gently by the shoulder. After a pause, he repeated the shaking, then stooped closer to the old man and grasped his body. A moment later, the printer turned to the expectant prisoners, and said in a loud whisper, "By God, I think they're too late with their damned release! If I know anything, the old man's dead!"

Meanwhile, the Tory's friends, three gentlemen of middle age, sat down-stairs in the guard-room, talking with the Irish officer, who explained that the prisoner would take a few minutes to make his toilet. When ten minutes had passed, the officer went to the corridor, and called up the dim stairway, "Mr. Follansbee's friends are impatient to see him," a speech meant as a signal for the guard to conduct the old gentleman down-stairs. The officer then stood at the side of the stair-foot, while the three gentlemen waited just within the guard-room door, opposite the officer.

In a minute the guard appeared at the head of the stairs, followed by two armed comrades, and supporting by the arm a bent, trembling, heavily wigged, sharp-featured, blinking person, whose clothes, of rich texture, were the same the old Tory had worn into the prison, but were now sadly soiled.

Slowly and painfully their wearer descended from step to step, in the half light of the stairs and corridor. When he reached the foot, the Irish officer stepped back to make more room for the Tory's three friends. These now came from the guard-room, and stood with half smiling, half shocked faces, to give the old man greeting. When he reached the lowest step, they held out their hands to him, but, to their astonishment, as the guard let go his arm, he darted forth between two of them, strode past the sentries at the outer prison door, and, ignoring the waiting coach, plunged down the street with an alacrity miraculous in one so enfeebled, and turned off at right angles into the first street that ran southward.

"His imprisonment has crazed him!" cried one of the three gentlemen.

"Hell and damnation!" cried the Irish officer, rushing up the stairs and motioning the guard to follow. Entering the cell, he stepped over the prostrate bodies of several prisoners to a figure that lay motionless in a corner. The clothes on this figure were Dick Wetheral's, but the face was that of the dead old Tory. With a curse, and a gesture of threat at the prisoners in the cell, the officer bounded back to the door, fastened it, and leaped down the stairs to order a pursuit.

At about the same moment, Dick, tossing the old man's wig back towards the prison from which he ran, thus conversed jubilantly and defiantly with himself:

"Cut my leg off, eh? Not if it and its comrade serve me properly to-day! The printer was right,—'twould have been a shame to waste that order of release on a dead man!"

As he ran, he divested himself of the old Tory's cumbersome coat, throwing it over a gate into an alley-way between two houses, and he also mentally justified his apparent selfishness in consenting to be the one who should use the opportunity of escape. As the printer and others had argued, in the few moments available for discussion, Dick's leg was at stake, he had been singled out for the harshest treatment, there was an evident intention to persecute the life out of him, and the others might be presently exchanged, which Dick could not hope to be as long as the machinations of his enemy could hinder.

When the vital resources called forth by excitement were used up, and Dick fell back to his weakened and wounded condition, his gait became a walk. Fortunately, until that time, his way had been mainly through a deserted street, so that his running had attracted no attention. Reaching a more populous thoroughfare, on which he saw more soldiers than citizens, he proceeded southwestwardly in a preoccupied manner, his coatless condition being easily accounted for by the heat of the season. At last he sat down to rest on the steps of a large brick church, at a corner where the street opened to a great, green, hilly, partly wooded space, which he knew, from previous description and from the military tents now upon it, to be the Common.

While he was viewing the scene, and gaining breath, and wondering how he should ever get out of the town, he became conscious of a hurried movement of men, at some distance back on his own route. Standing on the highest church step to look, he saw a squad of soldiers led by an officer whom he took to be the Irishman. Other people about had noticed this movement, which was rapidly nearing.

To get out of the way inconspicuously, Dick descended from the church steps, and started at a walk up the steep street that ran by the side of the church and which bounded the end of the Common. As he tugged up the hill, he knew by cries and footsteps that the soldiers were making good speed towards the corner he had left; and just as he reached the top of the hill he heard a shout from the foot of it.

"Stop that rebel!" were the words, and the voice was that of the Irish officer. Dick turned into the street that went along the upper side of the Common, and thence he bounded through the first open gate on the right-hand side, into a flowery garden before a broad residence whose wide door, flanked by glass panels and surmounted by a great fan-light, gaped hospitably from a spacious vine-embowered porch. As he made for this porch, for the time hidden from his pursuers on the up-hill street by the trees at the corner of the Common, a young lady came idly from the door. She first halted at the approaching cry, "Stop that rebel," and then stepped back in surprise as Dick, tripping on the steps that led up to the porch, fell prone at her feet.

"Dear me, what's the matter?" she said, breathlessly; then quickly stooped and picked up something from near Dick's head.

"That belongs to me!" he said, hoarsely, rising to his knees, and reaching out for it greedily. It was the precious miniature, which had in some manner worked from its fastenings in Dick's queue.

"Who are you?" asked the girl, who was slender, blue-eyed, and fair, still retaining the portrait.

"Stop that rebel!" came the cry from around the corner of the Common.

Dick's mind worked quickly. "I'm the man they're hunting," he said.

The girl frowned, murmured the word "rebel," and looked down at him with an expression of dislike. From this he knew she was a Tory, hence friendly to his pursuers and at bitter enmity with his cause.

She looked mechanically at the portrait, which had escaped from its silken bag. "Is this a lady who is waiting for you to come back from the fighting?" she asked, with sudden softness of tone and countenance.

"Yes," lied Dick, promptly; "as you also doubtless wait for some one!"

The girl blushed, and looked sympathetically at the portrait, then at Dick.

"Stop that rebel!" The voice had turned the corner of the Common, but its owner was still concealed from view by the trees and bushes of the garden. "The open gate yonder," it added; "search that place!"

"Sit down," quickly whispered the girl to Dick, handing him the portrait. "There,—under that bench!"

Dick obeyed, from lack of other choice, at the same time losing hope, for the space beneath the bench was open to the view of any one entering the porch.

A moment later he felt and saw himself closed in from sight, by the skirts and petticoat of the young lady, who had taken her seat on the bench immediately over him.

In this novel hiding-place he lay, half stifled, while the girl politely answered the questions of the Irish officer, whom she directed to a rear alley, whither, she said, the fugitive must have betaken himself; and when the last soldier had gone from the premises she blushingly arose and faced her equally flushed guest, who stammered the thanks he could better look than speak. Not waiting for talk, she immediately conducted him to the garret of the house, where he passed the rest of the day, and the ensuing night, on a pile of old bedclothes behind some barrels. Next afternoon, she brought him a pass obtained from Major Urquhart, the town-major, permitting one Dorothy Morrill to pass the barriers at Boston Neck. She gave Dick a maid-servant's frock and cap, showed him how to put up his hair in feminine fashion, and led him out of the house and grounds by a back way while the family sat at supper.

"'Tis all for the sake of the lady who is waiting for you," were her last words, and Dick, bowing low so as to avoid her eyes, took the way she had described, to Boston Neck. In the streets he was chucked under the chin by certain jocular soldiers, which demonstrations he took as evidence of the excellence of his disguise.

His heart was in his mouth when he showed his pass to the sergeant of the guard, at the gate in the barriers, for failure at the last moment is a sickening thing. But he was passed through without special question, and went on his way rejoicing to Roxbury, past the George Tavern, and so to the American lines, where, taking off his woman's garb before the astonished sentries, he was recognized by one of General Thomas's officers, and allowed to proceed through Brookline to Cambridge.

There he found things greatly changed since he had been taken prisoner, as he had found them at Roxbury also. The camps were larger, better equipped, and more orderly. Everywhere manifest was the presence of the new commander-in-chief, whose headquarters were at Cambridge, where the army's centre lay. Best of all, to Dick, companies of riflemen had arrived from Virginia and Pennsylvania, one from his own county, Cumberland. He knew its captain, Hendricks, by reputation, and, learning from Captain Maxwell that Tom MacAlister had regularly joined this organization, he hastened to follow the last-named hero's example, much to the said hero's unconcealed delight, although not to his surprise, for nothing ever surprised him. Dick found him quartered on Prospect Hill, in a hut of boards, brush, stones, and turf, and just returned from a day spent with a rifle in picking off British soldiers in Boston.

Dick was warmly welcomed by Captain Hendricks, and speedily mustered in. He doffed his prison-worn clothes for a rifleman's suit, which had belonged to a man who had died in camp; renewed acquaintance with his friend, M'Cleland, who was now a lieutenant in the company, and with Lieutenant Simpson and others from his own part of the country; and passed his days, like the other riflemen, on the hills, blazing away at British soldiers afar in the town, even bringing down a redcoat near the camp on the Common now and then.

He counted as a great event his first sight of Washington, as the commander-in-chief rode along the lines when the regiments were assembled for morning prayers. The large, soldierly figure, the mien of dignity and simplicity, the self-contained countenance, quite equalled all Dick's previously formed impressions of the Virginia hero, and would have done so without aid of the buff-faced blue coat over the buff underdress, the epaulettes, the small sword, and the great, warlike cocked hat with its black cockade.

On a fine September morning, the 8th of the month, Dick and Tom took note of these general orders of the commander-in-chief: "The detachment going under the command of Colonel Arnold, to be forthwith taken off the roll of duty and to march this evening to Cambridge Common, where tents and everything necessary are provided for their reception. The rifle company at Roxbury and those from Prospect Hill, to march early to-morrow morning, to join the above detachment. Such officers and men as are taken from General Green's brigade, for the above detachment, are to attend the muster of their respective regiments to-morrow morning, at seven o'clock, upon Prospect Hill; when the muster is finished, they are forthwith to rejoin the detachment at Cambridge."

"And what do ye think of that, now, sonny," said old Tom, softly. "Do ye mind a word I spoke to ye once, about the wind o' circumstance?"

"Why, what do you mean?" queried Dick.

"Nothing," said the piper's son, "only that order includes us, and maybe it's well ye keep it guid hauld of the bit picture, for this detachment will be bound for nane ither place than Quebec, lad!"

Quebec! Dick reached back and clutched the portrait, which had been restored to its former hiding-place; and only in a vague, distant way he heard the next ensuing words of MacAlister:

"It's ever over more hills and farther away, boy; and wha kens but the road will lead to Paris yet, afore all's said and done?"

CHAPTER VII.

THE MARCH THROUGH MAINE.

Dick found himself more immediately under the command of Capt. Daniel Morgan, who led the division composed of all three rifle companies; a large, strong man, whose usually severe mien softened on occasion into a singularly kindly one; a rigid disciplinarian, impetuous yet sagacious, easily aroused but soon calmed. Dick's own captain, William Hendricks, was tall and noble-looking, gentle and heroic in face and heart. The two lieutenants, John M'Cleland and Michael Simpson, were both old acquaintances of Dick's, the former being notable for his openness of character, the latter for his gaiety and his skill as a singer. Sergeant Grier was a faithful, reliable man, whose stout and intrepid wife accompanied him on the campaign and without difficulty kept the respect of the soldiers. The Lancaster company's captain, Matthew Smith, was soldierly and good-looking, but unlettered and turbulent. Two of his best men were a pair of adventurous youths no older than Dick,—Archibald Steele and John Joseph Henry.

Of the two New England divisions, one was under Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island, the other under Lieutenant-Colonel Enos, of Connecticut. But Dick, on the march, came little in contact with the Yankee troops.

Sleeping by the way on the first night of the expedition, the army reached the little town of Newburyport on Tuesday, and camped here several days, completing its equipment. It was joined here by several volunteers, including two young men named Aaron Burr and Matthew Ogden, and Colonel Arnold attached these two to his staff. On Monday afternoon, September 18th, the army embarked on ten transports, which set sail in the evening, and which, under a fair, strong breeze, reached the mouth of the Kennebec at dawn. Continuing on the transports a short distance up this river, to Gardiner, the army left them at Colonel Colborn's ship-yard, and proceeded in two hundred bateaux to Fort Western,—on whose site the city of Augusta was later built,—reaching that place on Saturday, September 23d, having camped by the river during the nights.

Here Colonel Arnold sent forward a pioneer party to explore the river and to blaze a way through the wilderness at each place where boats could not navigate and where the men would have to go by land. Dick openly envied the lucky fellows selected for this duty,—Steele, Henry, four more of Smith's men, and three of Morgan's. As, from the camp on a pine-clad slope, he watched them set out, he would have given much for a place in one of their two light birch-bark canoes, each of which was partly laden with pork, meal, and biscuit.

"Hoot toot, lad!" said MacAlister, divining the boy's feelings. "It's work enough ye're like to have, whether ye gang before or behint, ere ye set eyes on the inside of Quebec town!"

It was Dick's lot not to go behind. The rifle companies constituted the van of the army, and set out from Fort Western in their bateaux a day in advance of the second division, Greene's, which in turn by a day preceded Eno's division, the third and last. This order was to be maintained until the army should have gone some way up the Kennebec, marched to that stream's branch, the Dead River, proceeded thereon, and made thence to the Chaudiere, where all should unite for the advance on Quebec. Colonel Arnold waited at Fort Western till the last division was off, then took a canoe, with Indians at the paddles, passed the third and second divisions, and overtook the advance at Norridgewock Falls, in the country of the moose deer.

Dick now found himself in a wilderness more solitary and picturesque than his own Pennsylvania forests. The last cabin of white settlers had been left behind. Civilized habitation would not again be seen until the army should reach the French settlements in Canada. The river, pursuing a turbulent way among rocks and over cataracts, was set amidst solitudes of fir-trees, hemlocks, birch, and other species, and these crowned the eminences that rose now gently, and now abruptly, on every hand. Within sound of the eternal tumult of Norridgewock Falls, were the ruins of a deserted Indian village, and as Dick lay at night under his blanket on his bed of evergreen branches, listening to the noise of the waterfall, and of MacAlister's snoring, he would look through his tent opening and imagine the ghosts of bygone red men, or that of the good French priest, Father Ralle, who had come to this village in 1698, and been killed when a party from Massachusetts suddenly attacked the place in 1724.

It was the task of Dick and his fellow riflemen to open the way, remove impediments from the streams, learn the fords, explore the portages or carrying-places where, the waters not being navigable, the boats had to be carried over land, and free these last of obstructions. For this work their attire was more suitable than was such garb as Dick had discarded on joining them; it consisted of hunting-cap, flannel shirt, cloth or buckskin breeches, buckskin leggings, moccasins, and outside hunting-shirt of brown linsey-woolsey, with a belt in which a knife and a tomahawk were carried. Each of Morgan's men wore on his cap a front-piece inscribed with the words, "Liberty or Death." This ever present reminder to the men, of the cause for which they toiled and suffered, came not amiss. It was not from the rifle companies that the desertions occurred, which united with swamp-fever and fatigue to reduce the army to fewer than a thousand able men before October 13th.

Dick soon realized the truth of old Tom's prediction concerning hard work. At the times when some of the men marched along the river banks, while some forced the bad and heavy bateaux, with their loads of provisions and other supplies, up the rapid stream, the lot of the former, struggling through thickets and swamps and over rocks, was no worse than the lot of the latter, wading and pushing against the current, which oftentimes upset or swamped their boats, and damaged provisions, arms, and ammunition. More than once a whole day was spent in getting around some single cataract, the men unloading the cargoes, carrying them—and sometimes the boats also—on their shoulders, then relaunching and reloading for another tug against the swift stream. Before the Great Portage, from the Kennebec to the Dead River, had been traversed, Dick was inured to the life of an amphibious being, as well as to that of some swamp-infesting animal or of some inhabitant of the underbrush. His breeches and leggings were torn almost from his legs by thickets, which spared not the skin under them, and below the hips he was thoroughly water-soaked. But he still slept and ate well, there being at this time plenty of trout and salmon in the ponds and streams, with which to eke out the diet of pork, meal-cakes, and biscuit. As yet the weather, though cold at night, caused no suffering to a youth of Dick's hardiness, or to a veteran as well seasoned as MacAlister.

"I prophesy that will be the langest fifteen mile ye'll often gang over," said Old Tom, when he and Dick came to a halt at last on the bank of the Dead River, having put behind them the Great Portage and its three intervening lakelets, after days of dragging and pushing of boats over a rough ridge, and through ponds and bogs. "I gather from offeecial sources," continued the Fiddler, "that we're like to reach the Chaudiere River in eight or ten days, though I hae my doots, seeing it's mony a mile up this river we'll be ganging, and then over God knows what kind of country after that. Weel, weel, lad, it's Quebec or nothing now, if ye hauld out, for devil a bit will ony mon of us gang willingly back over the road we've come by!"

So jubilant were the men at having overcome the difficulties of the great carrying-place, that they whistled and jested as they launched their boats on the sluggish waters of the Dead River. They acted as if the end of their journey were in sight. Colonel Arnold had already sent an Indian messenger to General Schuyler, whose army from the province of New York had in August started under Montgomery from Ticonderoga to enter Canada below Montreal and eventually unite with Arnold's force before Quebec. The colonel thought to receive an answer to this letter on arriving at the Chaudiere.

"It's a blithe lot of men, true for ye, wi' their whistling and capering," said old Tom, in an undertone, as he and Dick stood recovering their breath after much pulling and shoving of boats. "All looks weel and bonny the day, but ye maun put nae trust in appearances. Do ye moind, ayont Curritunk, afore we left the Kennebec, how ye steppit sae merrily on the green moss that seemed to cover level ground for sae lang a stretch, and how ye found 'twas rotten bog beneath the surface, and full of them snags that tripped ye up and cut your feet in the devil's ain way? Mony's the mon like that,—and woman, too!"

Up the Dead River for eighty-three miles the army proceeded, the riflemen still leading. Seventeen times they had to unload their boats and carry the loads past places that were not navigable. On this part of the journey the men were assailed by rains and cold weather. Lieutenant M'Cleland, more fragile in body than in spirit, was one of many whose constitutions began to yield to these assaults. With a cold in the lungs, he toiled on, performing his duties and refusing aid, until his increasing weakness compelled him to relinquish the former and accept the latter, on his comrades' insistence and his captain's orders. When the chosen route departed from the Dead River, to cross a mountain, M'Cleland was placed on a litter and so carried forward.

"If I can only hold out till we enter Quebec!" he said from his litter, one bleak, drizzling day, while Captain Hendricks, Dick, MacAlister, and others bore him up the wooded mountain-side,—for the captain took his turn at the litter with the others.

Captain Hendricks cheerily said there could be no doubt of that, and Lieutenant Simpson, who happened to be walking immediately behind the litter, predicted that the sufferer would begin to mend as soon as the troops should reach the Chaudiere, and reminded him, for the tenth time, that a boat was being carried across the mountain purposely to take him down that river while his comrades should march along the banks.

The lieutenant brightened up at this reassurance that he was not to be left behind,—as more than one ailing man had necessarily been,—and, turning his eyes to Dick, said:

"Do you remember the morning, Dick, when I galloped up to your house with the news of the beginning of this business? How long ago that seems, and how far away!" His voice had sunk, and he was silent and thoughtful for a moment. Then he resumed, with as much cheerfulness as his weakened state would allow him to show, "We didn't imagine ourselves, that morning, marching into Quebec together, as we shall be before many a day!"

Dick's answer was prevented by a fit of coughing on M'Cleland's part, after which the sufferer closed his eyes and went into a feverish doze. Old Tom glanced down at him, and for a moment looked grimmer than usually.

Before starting to cross this mountain, which was one of the great snow-covered chain running northeastwardly, Colonel Arnold and the first division had camped at the base to rest. The tents had been flooded by heavy rains and by sudden torrents from the mountains. The inundation had upset several boats, destroyed provisions, and dampened the spirits as well as the bodies of the men. Rations were shortened, and the dejecting news went round that there remained a journey of twelve or fifteen days in a wilderness devoid of supplies. After consulting with the officers on the ground, Arnold sent orders back to Colonel Greene and Colonel Enos to bring forward as many men as they could furnish with fifteen days' provisions, and to send the rest of their forces back to Norridgewock. These orders despatched, Arnold and the riflemen started on their march across the mountain.

Drenched with rain at the outset, they were soon chilled by wintry winds, and presently impeded by snow and ice. But at last the crest of the mountain no longer crossed the bleak sky ahead. Valleys, set with icy streams and frozen lakes, came into view, their sombreness not lessened by the color of their dark evergreens. The down-hill and cross-country march of the scantily fed men brought them at last to Lake Megantic, the source of the Chaudiere. Here they met a courier whom Colonel Arnold had sent ahead to the valley of the Chaudiere to sound the French habitans, whose humble farms would be the first human abodes reached in Canada. This emissary said that the peasants would give the American army a hospitable reception. Colonel Arnold thereupon chose to precede the army down the Chaudiere, with a foraging party, that he might obtain and send back supplies and also have provisions collected for the army's use on its arrival at the habitations. He therefore caused the little remaining food to be given out equally to the companies, ordered them to follow as best they could to the Chaudiere settlements, and set out with a birch canoe and five bateaux. In the colonel's party was Archibald Steele, with whose pioneer force the riflemen had reunited at the Dead River, and whom Dick, compelled as before to remain behind with the main advance, again had reason to envy.

"Whist, lad!" quoth old Tom. "The post of honor, ye'll find, is back where the starving will be. There'll be low spirits henceforth, I'm thinking, and waurk for the fiddle, hearting up the men when they've leetle dourness left to fa' back on and it's devil a bit of difference whether they live or die. Lord, Lord! It's a gang of living ghaists we are, Dickie. Wi' the clothes of us torn to flinders by the stanes and briars, and wi' nowt left to our shoes but the tops, we'd do fine to scare away the crows from the corn fields in a ceevilized country. Sure, the wind is like to pull the tatters frae our backs, and make us a shocking sight to the ladies when we march in triumph into Quebec!"

"If we ever get to Quebec," said a soldier, dismally, who had overheard Tom's last words.

"We'll get to Quebec!" said Dick, positively; and he involuntarily put back his hand and felt his queue.

Dick now went to speak to his friend M'Cleland, who had been placed in a boat, which was to be navigated across the lake and down the Chaudiere by Sergeant Grier and several others.

"Mind you land him safe!" called out the sergeant's buxom wife, as the boat moved off; and the sergeant replied he would do his best.

"I'm afraid the poor lieutenant finds it a long way to Quebec," said Mrs. Grier, taking place in the line of riflemen as it started for the Chaudiere by land.

"It's a lang way for some more of us," replied Tom MacAlister, who marched behind her. "There's that puir blind Shafer, the drummer in the Lancaster company. Look at him now, yonder. It's ten to one he can't see a dozen foot ahead of his nose, yet he's always in his place, next man to one ahint Captain Smith,—except when he fa's into a bog, through lack of eyesight. It must be the sense of hearing keeps him sae straight after the heels of young Henry afore him. Sure, if every man was like him, Captain Morgan would never have to look black and curse inside because of stragglers from the camp."

"It's a sin," said Mrs. Grier, "the tricks the men play on him, stealing his cakes away from under his very eyes. Och! there he goes now, tumbling off the log into the gully, drum and all! You're right, MacAlister,—the way to Quebec is a long one to Shafer, the drummer."

"Yet I'd wager a pound or two, if I had it," said Tom, "the puir, blind, naked, hungry body will be beating his drum at Quebec, when mony a stout rascal that laughs at him now will be sleeping here in these gullies wi' the bitter wind for bed-covering."

The troops came presently to a pond, which would require so wide a detour to skirt, that the far shorter way was to cross it. Trying the ice that covered it, the men found that too thin to bear their weight. With dogged resignation, they began to break the ice with their guns, and waded in. Mrs. Grier raised her skirts above her waist and followed the man ahead, through the chilling water, to the opposite shore. Dick and Tom waded immediately after her. No one offered either smile or comment. On the tired troops marched, in Indian file, hungry, shivering, aching, each man feeling that the next step might be his last.

When they reached the Chaudiere, many of the riflemen did not wait for the order to halt, but exhaustedly sank to the frosty ground in line. Tom, always respecting discipline, trudged on till the word came, followed through force of example by Dick; and then these two also dropped in their places.

"Chaudiere," said MacAlister, glancing down that stream. "That means caldron, and frae the look of things down yonder I won't gainsay the fitness of the name. It's unco' wild navigation we're like to have, down that there boiling torrent, I'm thinking!"

And so it proved, when an attempt was made to launch boats. Every one that was put into the river was stove in by rocks, on being hurled forward by the rapids. But Captain Morgan persisted, until he had lost all of his boats. The ammunition, arms, and other equipments were thereupon taken up by the men, who proceeded along the banks of the turbulent stream.

It happened that Dick and Tom were at the front of the division, when they turned the corner of a projecting rock, and came unexpectedly on a group that stood around a fire, beside which a man was lying. It required but a glance to inform Dick that this group consisted of Sergeant Grier's party and that the man on the ground was Lieutenant M'Cleland. The sight of a damaged boat, and of a rock near the verge of a cataract, told the story,—that the boat had lodged on the rock, and that the men had managed to bring the feeble lieutenant ashore in time to save him from speedy death. In a moment Dick was kneeling at his side, whither he was soon followed by Captain Hendricks and Lieutenant Simpson.

"It was a foolish thing to let you go by the river," said Hendricks to the prostrate man, whose breath came in quick, feeble movements, and whose weather-browned features had an ashy pallor.

"We'll carry you on as we did over the mountain,—all the way to Quebec," said Dick, pressing M'Cleland's hand.

But the lieutenant merely smiled faintly, took on a look of drowsy resignation, essayed to shake his head, and whispered the word, "Farewell!" Dick had to yield the hand he held, and his place by his friend's side, that his captain and certain of his comrades might clasp the hand once ere it should be cold. Even as Dick was thinking of the sunny April morning when his friend had ridden up, all life and animation, with the news of Lexington, the soldier sighed his last farewell.

When the troops took up their march and left the dead man there, as they had left many another in those bleak wilds, Dick had a moment of heart-sickness, when all seemed dark before him, and when he wished that he and M'Cleland might be back in their Pennsylvania valley, and that there had never been a war.

"Heart up, lad!" came over his shoulder, softly, the voice of old Tom. "It's mony a friend ye'll leave cauld by the wayside ere ye come to lie there cauld yoursel'. Ye'll learn to keep looking forward, as ye gang over the hills and far away. Sae hauld up your head, and swallow your Adam's apple, and fasten your mind's eye on Quebec!"

And Dick braced himself and did so.

By the 29th of October the last mouthful of meat was eaten and the last biscuit gone. A little flour remained, and this was divided equally, each man receiving five pounds. This they boiled in kettles of water, without salt, into what they called a bleary, subsequently eating it out of the wooden bowls around each one of which several half-numb fellows sat or lay at meals. At such times, those who were not reduced to a state of wretched apathy or speechless despair, discussed the probabilities of their ever receiving food from Colonel Arnold's advance party, or of their perishing in the chill wilderness. Many were the growlers and foreboders of evil.

"Bedad," said Tom MacAlister, after two or three of these had been having their say, "ye put me in mind of the complaining children of Israel, though it's far waur than them ye be, for they had forty years in the wilderness afore ivver they set sight on the Promised Land."

"Ay," replied one of the malcontents, "but the Lord sent them manna from heaven, whereas he sends us only rain and snow and wind. And who can say for certain when we shall catch sight of our Moses again, eh, boys?"

Suspicions like this, real or pretended, that their leader had deserted or even betrayed them, were plentiful among these troops, as they were, indeed, throughout the American armies during most of the war for independence. It was by making men forget these thoughts, or ashamed of them, that the example of uncomplaining endurance set by Dick, and the soldierly conduct and musical performances of old Tom, were of great use to the officers in holding the troops to their weary task. At night an immense fire was made, and, while the men lay around it to warm their bodies, MacAlister fiddled and Lieutenant Simpson sang for them. The lieutenant had a rich, manly voice, and as many songs at command as Tom had tunes,—songs of war, comic songs, songs of love,—and his voice and that of Tom's fiddle, rising above the crackling of the fire, made sounds unwonted in that wintry wilderness accustomed only to the murmur of waters and the howling of winds.

The last pinch of flour found its way into the pot and thence into some half famished stomach. The men's lives now depended entirely on the arrival of supplies from Colonel Arnold's foraging party before starvation could complete its work. After going a day unfed, MacAlister and Dick boiled their leather cartouch-boxes in the pot, drank the broth, and afterward chewed up the leather. The next day they discussed the advisability of following the example of some of the other riflemen, who had boiled their moccasins and leggings. Wandering through the camp, while off duty, they came to a startled halt, at sight of a number of men actually eating some roasted meat. Partaking speedily of this feast, on invitation, Dick, not recognizing the flavor of the flesh, asked what it was.

"Whist, lad," said old Tom, tearing the meat from a bone with his teeth, "be content with what Providence sends, and discipline your curiosity. Ye'll no relish your supper the better for speering."

But the men's talk soon disclosed that the meat was of Captain Dearborn's Newfoundland dog, which had been an army pet. Dick ate no more that evening, but the next day, drawn irresistibly to the same mess, he accepted a ladleful of greenish broth, which, the men told him, had been made of the dog's bones, these having been pounded up for the purpose.

"He's all gone now, poor fellow," said one of the men; "even the insides of him, and Lord knows when we'll eat next!"

On the march, the troops came to a place where the Chaudiere swept a smooth beach, through which protruded parts of sand-roots. At sight of these, many of the men broke madly from the file, dug out the roots with their fingers, and ravenously ate them on the spot.

Captain Morgan, sharing without exemption the sufferings of the men, was no less severe against insubordination during this starving time than he had formerly been. His rigid yet fair rule, and the kindly and tactful authority of Hendricks, kept the men moving along towards the distant goal, however listlessly and hopelessly some of them went. As for the Lancaster company, if Captain Smith was unduly boisterous, his men had before them such examples of unquenchable spirit as young Henry, and of unwearying patience as Shafer, the half blind drummer. But it was, on the whole, a despairing band of haggard and half naked men that moved at crawling pace along the rocky Chaudiere.

"The farther we march, the farther away seems the Promised Land," muttered the man whom old Tom had once likened to the murmuring children of Israel.

MacAlister, who had begun to limp, for the once made no answer, and Dick, toiling heavily along behind him, had to clench his teeth and think of the girl in Quebec, to keep from succumbing to the general despair.

Suddenly, from the tree-hidden distance in front, came a sound that made every man's head go up in eager, half-incredulous joy. It was the lowing of cattle.

The troops pushed rapidly forward, every ear and eye alert. When a clear space was reached, and a few men of Colonel Arnold's party, with some Canadians and Indians, were seen coming up the river with a herd of cattle, several of the soldiers shrieked wildly, others laughed like lunatics, many wept like women, and some rushed forward and threw their arms around the great brown necks of the cattle. Dick smiled and cheered and waved his hat, and old Tom's face warmed for a moment into a gratified grin. In after years both often used to say that the joyfullest sight of their lives was that of these cattle coming up the river on that wintry day in the wilderness.

While they ate, around their camp-fire, they heard how Arnold's party had fared, how three of its boats had been dashed to pieces on the way down the Chaudiere, the cargoes lost, the crews put in great peril of their lives, one boat-load of men nearly thrown over a cataract; how the party was cordially received at Sertigan, the nearest French settlement, whose first house Arnold had reached on the night of October 30th, and how he had started provisions back towards the army early the next morning.

It was two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, November 4th, when the riflemen, having swiftly waded mid-deep through a wide stream that flowed from the east, came in sight of the first house they beheld in Canada, a small, squat, wooden building, which, with its barn and little outhouses, had a look of snugness and comfort all the greater for the bleak surroundings. The men rushed forward to it joyfully, and found that Colonel Arnold had laid in a great quantity of food.

Stared at curiously by the wool-clad Canadian family of seven persons, the famished troops ate voraciously, cramming their throats with boiled beef, hot bread, and boiled or roasted potatoes. Warned by MacAlister, Dick restrained his appetite and fed but moderately. Within a few hours he realized the value of old Tom's admonition, for many of the men sickened from the sudden repletion and some died of it. The army now had not only supplies but also a reinforcement, which consisted of the Abenaqui chief, Natanis, with his brother, Sebatis, and several of his tribe, all these Indians having distantly accompanied the troops, unseen, from the Dead River. They had feared that, in the wilderness, the army might receive them as enemies. These allies were welcomed as compensating slightly for the defection of the entire third division, which, through the misunderstanding or disobedience of Enos, had gone back in its entirety, with the medicine-chest and a large stock of provisions, when Arnold had ordered its incapacitated men returned to Norridgewock.

The army made a halt at the French settlements, while Colonel Arnold distributed among the Canadians a printed manifesto furnished him by General Washington, of which the purpose was to enlist Canadians to the cause of the revolted colonies. On the 7th of November the two divisions, now together and numbering only six hundred men, were four leagues from the St. Lawrence. Hope and expectation had reawakened. Around the camp-fire that night there were conjectures as to how and when the attack on Quebec would be made; as to how it was at present garrisoned and fortified; as to what the army from New York, under Schuyler and Montgomery, must have done by this time in the vicinity of Montreal; as to when Colonel Arnold should receive replies to the messages he had sent by Indians to those commanders; as to when the two armies would unite; as to which side would be taken by the different elements of Canada's population,—the old French aristocracy, the Catholic priesthood, the French peasants, the few British and Irish immigrants who had come in since the English had taken the country from the French. Thus far, the humble habitans, at least, had given the Americans kindly welcome, calling them nos pauvres frères and refusing payment for lodging and food in their little farmhouses. Again and again was told the story of Wolfe's victory in '59, and it was questioned whether the American commanders would ascend to the Heights of Abraham to attack, as he had done, or would assail the city on some other side.

Arnold's boldly outlined, resolute countenance, with the fire in the eyes, and the look of inward planning, had the prophetic aspect of victory, and throughout the little army confidence grew apace. Lieutenant Simpson's voice and Tom MacAlister's fiddle now sounded out blithely. Even the cold was less heeded. A deeply thrilling expectancy glowed in Dick, making him view things about him as in a kind of dream.

"Sure, the Promised Land seems to be coming into sight, after all," said old Tom, to the grumbler who marched ahead of him. The army had broken camp and was marching towards the St. Lawrence.

"Who said it wasn't?" queried the other; but he added, a moment later, "Though we haven't set foot on it yet, and as for what's in sight, all I can see ahead is woods, with a parcel of ragged walking corpses trailing through."

They were, indeed, a procession of sorry-looking creatures. Unkempt, ill-shaven, limping from footsoreness, bending forward from the habit induced by fatigue, sunken of cheek, haggard of eye and feature, half naked, many of them barefoot, bearing their rifles and baggage as heavy burdens, they were an army more fitted to appall by their ghastly aspect than by military formidableness. So they plodded through the forest.

On Thursday, November 9th, blinking their eyes at the sudden light as they emerged from the shades, Dick and MacAlister stepped out in file from the woods, presently came to a halt, drawn up in line with the little army, and stood staring in a kind of stupid wonder at the scene before them,—first a clear space sloping gradually, next a wide river flowing tranquilly, a few vessels moored in the river, then some houses and walls massed irregularly at the base of high cliffs, and finally, at the top of these cliffs, a huddle of fortifications, towers, spires, and roofs, and, over all else, the flag of England.

"'Tis Quebec, lad!" said old Tom, in a singularly dry tone, little above a whisper; "the Promised Land!"

Dick made no answer, but stood gazing with moistened eyes, unable to speak for the emotion that stirred within him.

CHAPTER VIII.

WITHIN THE WALLS OF QUEBEC.

There was neither any visible sign of the army from the province of New York, nor any news from it. Dick was promptly assigned to duty with a party sent to look for boats, that the army might at the chosen time cross from Point Levi, near which it camped, to the Quebec side of the river. Neither Dick nor any of his comrades found craft of any kind; instead, they got, from the habitans, the information that the British at Quebec had recently removed or destroyed all the boats about Point Levi. So the coming of the American army had been expected! The inference from this fact, and from the non-arrival of word from the New York army, was that Arnold's Indian messengers had betrayed his purpose to the enemy in Quebec, and time proved this conclusion true. There was naught to do but remain at Point Levi and search the riverside afar for boats.

In a short time this quest resulted in the assembling of forty birch canoes, obtained from Canadians and Indians, with forty Indians to navigate them. But now came windy, stormy weather, in which the roughness of the river made impossible a crossing in such fragile craft.

During this period of discomfort in the camp, intelligence began to come, through the inhabitants, of the state of affairs in Quebec. General Carleton, the governor, was away, up the St. Lawrence, perhaps directing movements against the army from New York, somewhere in the vicinity of Montreal. But the defences were being strengthened and the garrison reinforced, under the direction of the lieutenant-governor, Caramhe, and of the veteran Colonel Maclean, who had returned from Sorel with the Royal Highland Emigrants, three hundred Scotchmen enlisted by him at Quebec. Recruits had come also from Nova Scotia and elsewhere. Quebec had observed the colonial troops camped between woods and river, and the military and official people despised and laughed at them. The merchants and business folk disliked Governor Carleton for his affiliation exclusively with the official and military classes and the old French aristocracy, but would nevertheless stand stanchly for English rule and the defence of the city. The French seigneurs, reconciled to the treaty of 1763, had no reason to desire a change of government, and it was likely that the priesthood, the artisans, and the peasants would be neutral save when favoring the winning side.

Such reports helped to furnish camp talk, and Dick was as interested in it as any one was, but the walled town that loomed high across the wide river had for him another interest. He would stand gazing at it by the hour, wondering in what part of it she was, and what would be the manner of his first sight of her. When he saw young Burr, of Arnold's staff, set forth in a sledge, and in a priest's disguise, from a friendly monastery, at a distance from the camp, with a guide, Dick promptly guessed the mission, the bearing of word from Arnold to the New York army; and for once Dick did not envy another a task of peril, for Dick preferred now to remain near Quebec.

Four days after the army's arrival at Point Levi, there came at last a messenger from General Montgomery, whom Schuyler's illness had left in supreme command of the expedition from New York Province. His news set the camp cheering. The town of St. John's, which the British had retaken after Arnold's capture of it, had fallen to Montgomery on the 3d of November, after a siege of seven weeks. The New York general was to have proceeded thence to Montreal, capture that town, and come down the river to join Arnold. On top of these inspiriting tidings, came the joyfully exciting orders to make ready for an immediate crossing of the river.

At about ten o'clock that night, Monday, November 13th, the troops paraded noiselessly on the beach near a mill at Point Levi. Dick's heart exulted as he found himself still in the van when the riflemen, directed in the gloom by the low-spoken orders of Morgan, stepped into the canoes that awaited them at the edge of the dark river. Silently, at the word, each boat pushed off, the Indians dipped their paddles, and the men found themselves in the swift current. Dick looked over the shoulder of old Tom towards the distant frowning heights, and recalled the story of how Wolfe, traversing the same river towards those same heights, on that fateful night sixteen years before, to find death and immortal fame on the morrow, had recited some lines from Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and said he would rather be their author than take Quebec. Dick's emotion on realizing that he was where great history had been made, mingled presently with the one image that dominated his mind whenever his eyes or thoughts were on Quebec.

But now and then an incident occurred to disturb his contemplations. The canoe behind him upset, and there was excitement, with loss of time, in rescuing its occupants, some of whom had to cross the river half submerged in the chill water, each holding to the stern of a canoe. Dick's boat, overcrowded, spilt a few of its passengers without entirely overturning, but no man was lost. The course lay between two of the enemy's war-vessels, a frigate and a sloop, yet the riflemen passed undiscovered. The transit seemed interminable, much to Dick's wonder, for from Point Levi the opposite shore had not appeared to be half as far as it was.

At last the canoe glided along the shore of Wolfe's Cove, at the base of a steep ascent a mile and a half from the town, and Dick leaped ashore after Lieutenant Simpson, on the spot where the English general had landed on that September night in '59. The little landing-place was soon thronged with the dark figures of the men from the first boats, and Dick, ere he had taken time to look around, was stealthily scurrying up the slanting path, one of a party quickly sent in different directions by Morgan to reconnoitre the town's approaches.

Clambering up the way by which Wolfe's army had ascended, he looked back and saw the dark river dotted in a long line with the boats of the crossing army. The continued silence testified either to the skill or good luck of his comrades, or to the blindness of the watches on the British vessels and on the guard-boats that patrolled the river. Reaching the top of the precipice and standing at last on the Plains of Abraham, Dick made sure that the head of the ascent was unguarded, and he thereupon, in obedience to his orders, descended back to the landing-place, and reported. More of the army had now arrived, and in an uninhabited house at the Cove a fire had been made, at which Dick went to warm himself and found old Tom.

At four o'clock in the morning, a sudden angry booming in the river proclaimed that the British had discovered the boats then crossing. But the bark was not followed by a bite, and at last the entire army was safe on land at the Cove. The men were in eager expectation of an immediate attack, which Captain Morgan openly showed himself to favor; but Colonel Arnold probably supposed from the firing that the garrison would be on the alert, and so, with guards set, the troops passed the night, as best they could, at the Cove.

On Tuesday the gaunt army marched up the precipice and stood where Wolfe's regiments had formed on the day they took Quebec from France. Far in front lay the town, behind its walls and bastions, and by them cut off upon its promontory. Old Tom knew the place from description, and pointed out, to Dick, Cape Diamond at the right, and the citadel crowning that height; at the left, close to a bastion, the open gate of St. John's, where Montcalm fell; between these two, the St. Louis Gate, the towers of churches, and the roofs of official residences. The soldiers waited, while the officers held council.

Suddenly, from the wall-encircled city, came the sound of drums beating to arms, and soon the walls became thronged with troops and citizens. At the same time the gate of St. John's was closed. Colonel Arnold thereupon marched his men towards the town and paraded them within a hundred yards of the walls, ordering them to give three cheers, which they did heartily, Dick tingling with the expectation of battle.

But the enemy stayed behind his walls, even though presently the Americans fired a few taunting volleys at him; and, after awhile, their demonstration being answered from the ramparts by a large piece of artillery, they marched back to a safe distance and encamped. That evening Colonel Arnold sent a flag, demanding surrender, but the Highlanders guarding the city gate fired on it. Then ensued more days of waiting.

The officers quartered in some now abandoned country residences and farmhouses, and many of the men were lodged in peasants' cottages and barns. During these days of inaction, riflemen were sent to the suburbs, outside the walls, to annoy the enemy, as they had annoyed him in Boston from the hills about Cambridge. While engaged in this, in the suburb of St. John's, Dick and MacAlister, by crawling away betimes on knees and elbows, narrowly escaped the capture that befell one of the Virginians who lay concealed with them in a thicket, a party of the enemy having made a sortie from the gate.

When they got back to camp, they learned that fresh news had come from Montgomery,—that Montreal had capitulated to him on the 12th, but that Governor Carleton had contrived to elude him and was supposed to have fled down the river, bound for Quebec. Orders were now given to be in readiness to march, it having been decided to retire up the river to Point aux Trembles, to await Montgomery at greater distance from the enemy. Dick's heart fell at thought of going, even for a short time and a score of miles, further from Quebec. Before he had time to brood over the matter, he was summoned to wait on Captain Hendricks, whom he found sitting with Colonel Arnold and Captain Morgan at a table in the chief room of a stone farmhouse. Hendricks returned his salute with a friendly look, Morgan with an approving one, and Arnold with a pleasant but piercing gaze and the words: "How would you like to go into Quebec, and learn the exact strength of each battery there and of each force of men in the garrison?"

When Dick grasped the full sense of this question, which he was delayed in doing by his mental notice of the present harmony between Arnold and Morgan after an open quarrel over the short allowance of flour to the riflemen, he waited a moment for breath, then answered:

"I should be delighted, sir!"

"It is necessary," Arnold went on, "that we have information more reliable than the reports we are getting from the inhabitants, for no two of these reports agree. There is a method just now by which a shrewd man may easily enter the city, without arousing suspicion there. This method requires that our man shall play a part. I am told you have ability in that direction."

Dick recalled his Boston escapes, and bowed.

"Here," said Arnold, handing Dick a sealed missive from the table, "is a letter from General Carleton, who is now somewhere up the river, to Colonel Maclean in Quebec. The messenger who carried it has fallen into our hands. It was so carelessly sealed that we were able to open and refasten it without seeming to have broken the wax. You are to personate the messenger, carry the letter to Colonel Maclean, get the information we want, and send it in a way I shall tell you of,—for you will probably be kept in the city, and any failure in your own attempt to get away might keep your information from reaching us. After that, you may escape when you best can. You understand, your report to me is not to be put to the risk that your body will doubtless undergo in getting back from the enemy."

"I understand."

"As General Carleton's message doesn't contain any description of the bearer, but merely tells Maclean to enroll him into service, you may assume what character you please. The messenger was a Tory hunter, from the province of New York, dressed much like you. So it may be well to pretend that character, wearing your own clothes. Captain Hendricks tells me you know enough of Montreal and the intervening country, from description, to answer knowingly if you should be questioned about it. Sit yonder, and read this letter from General Montgomery to me, and this copy of General Carleton's message to Colonel Maclean. They will let you know how matters were at Montreal, and with General Carleton, when the messenger left."

Dick glanced down at the papers pushed towards him, and resumed heed of Arnold's instructions, which continued while the speaker now and then jotted down a word or two on a piece of paper:

"You will leave the camp with this pass, on the side farthest from the town, so it may appear you are going to reconnoitre up the river; for your destination must of course be a secret, lest some informant of the enemy's might follow and expose you. You will go around the camp by land, and reach the city after dark. The letter you carry will get you admittance without delay. Once within the walls, obtain the information as you are best able to. Put it in writing, and take it to a woman called Mère Frappeur, who keeps a wine shop in the upper town, near the Palace Gate. She is an Irish woman, the widow of a French fish-monger, and she has a boat in which she sometimes goes fishing herself. When you meet her, if no one else is about, whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,'—do you know the tune?"

Dick, who had heard Tom fiddle it a thousand times, softly whistled the opening part. Arnold nodded, and went on:

"If you look at her in such a manner as to show that the tune is a signal, she will soon come to an understanding with you. You will ask her, in my name, to take your written message, in her boat, at night, close to the shore immediately on this side of the British stockade near the foot of Cape Diamond. There she will whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,' and will be answered with the same tune by a man whom I shall have in waiting there each night, from to-morrow. She will give him the message and afterwards report to you. When you are sure the information is safe in that man's hands, you may escape and report to me, when you find opportunity or create it. I have made some notes here, that you will fix in mind before you start; but destroy that paper and my pass, as soon as you are clear of the camp, so that you will carry no papers to Quebec other than General Carleton's letter."

Dick took the sheet handed to him, and read the words: "Strength of each battery,—number men in each force,—Mère Frappeur,—wine shop near Palace Gate,—Molly, my Treasure,—boat,—each night,—shore this side stockade near foot Cape Diamond." While the three officers discussed in low tones at one end of the table, Dick sat at the other end, and memorized every circumstance mentioned in the letters of Montgomery and Carleton. He then rose, and, being noticed by Colonel Arnold, returned those two letters, and took his leave, retaining the pass, Arnold's brief notes, and the genuine letter from Carleton to Maclean. He was followed from the room by the kindly smile of Captain Hendricks.