Upon all sides were lighted windows; and through each of them could be seen groups of Hessians feasting or dancing; the sounds of singing and laughter came from every quarter. Through the day, George Prentiss’ quick eye had noted the increasing lack of military deportment among the mercenaries; and now that night had come, things had grown worse.

“The fire, when I light it, will be allowed to burn,” thought the young fellow, grimly, as he pushed his way through the snow. “And when Washington’s rifles are banging about their ears, perhaps they’ll regret their feastings and frolickings.”

In a little while he was in the select quarter of the town. Here the festival was being observed with less grotesquery; and every now and then a sleigh flitted by, crowded with merrymakers on their way to Colonel Rahl’s concert. At the door of the Hawksworth mansion stood a number of gracefully modeled cutters, each with a spirited team and a great number of jingling bells. Apparently quite a party were going from here to the concert; they were trooping down the steps laughing and chattering; several footmen held lanthorns aloft; the ice upon the stone steps and pavement glittered like glass.

Suddenly there was an exclamation; a girl slipped and would have fallen had not young Prentiss deftly caught her. She murmured a “Thank you,” and looked into his face.

But, so filled was he with the importance of his errand, that he had not even noted that the house was Hawksworth’s; so he failed to recognize the face behind the heavy veil. All unknowing, he touched his hat and hurried on. She recognized him, however, for the light from a lanthorn had fallen directly upon his face; and she gasped to see him here, of all places in the world. Her friends were laughing and chattering still, and calling to each other from the different sleighs; but she never heeded them. Standing at one side she gazed after the dimming figure pushing its way so doggedly through the snow.

And as she stood there, she became aware of something else. There was another figure—a burly, towering figure that possessed an atmosphere at once cautious and threatening. The huge shoulders were bent, the head was drawn down, the step was careful, the whole manner one of secrecy and observation. That this person was following the boy seemed beyond doubt; and the girl choked back a little cry as she realized it.

Apparently under the impression that the entire party was wrapped in the robes and tucked away in the sleighs, the horses were given rein and started away amid a great jingling of bells. But still Peggy Camp paid no heed. For a moment she stood, her eyes following the burly, secretive pursuer; then with sudden resolution she gathered her cloak about her and stole away in the broad track which he left in the snow.

When George reached the point above the town where his friend had crossed, he stopped for a moment and gazed out over the river. Not even a twinkle of light could be seen from the Pennsylvania shore; the snow was falling thickly; the bitter wind had broken the ice into huge cakes, and these were grinding together ominously.

But his pause was only of a moment’s duration. Upon the hillock of which Nat had spoken, a heap of brush, carefully covered from the snow, was collected. George had taken this precaution the day before. Shielding his operations with his hat, he struck a spark and fired the brush; the flame began to lick at the dry twigs hungrily; the dark red tongues leaped from point to point at the bottom of the heap. As the wind struck it, the mounting fire bur-r-r-red complainingly; and satisfied that it had safely caught, George stepped back. As he did so he heard a step at his side; upon the point of whirling about he heard a low voice say:

“Hah! You would, would you!”

Then came a tremendous blow upon the side of his head and he fell stunned upon the hillside. The cold touch of the snow, however, instantly revived him; with his muscles lax and powerless he lay there, his eyes rolling about until they became fixed upon a form at the fire.

“A signal, eh?” The big man laughed, and the leaping flame lighted up his face. And, as it did so, George, strangely enough, knew him. It was the bully, Slade, whom he had seen at the “King’s Arms” on his first day in New York. “A signal, was it, my hearty? Well, we’ll soon put an end to that.”

With a massive walking stick, apparently the weapon with which he had felled young Prentiss, he began scattering the brush.

Unsteadily, George got upon his feet; waveringly he advanced. For the fire to be instantly quenched meant that the American army must not venture across the river.

“How do I know but what this would bring the entire swarm of rebels down upon us?” growled Slade. He lifted his cudgel for another blow at the burning brush, when he felt himself shouldered aside; and when he turned he found himself staring into a wide mouthed pistol.

“You will kindly not disturb this fire,” said the young New Englander. “It cost me some little effort to build it, and I’d prefer having it burn.”

Bristling and snarling more like a bad mannered mastiff than ever, Slade regarded the young man.

“All such things as fire are forbidden on the river bank,” said he, rather lamely.

George laughed. “They will have to do something more than forbid, to make me put this one out,” he said.

“I was right, then,” said Slade. “It’s a signal!”

“It is your privilege to guess. And it is also mine to refuse an answer,” smiled the young man.

Though he kept the pistol upon Slade, George noticed that the fire was waning. He began kicking the brush together that it might burn better; particles of snow flew among the light flames and hissed and sputtered.

“How much of the conversation did you overhear at the inn about an hour ago?” asked Slade.

“All of it.”

“That’s what I thought.” The small eyes snapped viciously beneath the heavy brows. “Then you know that you’ve never deceived us. We knew that you were playing fast and loose from the first.”

“Your messenger from Boston was suspected of being a traitor, was he?”

“Suspected?” Slade laughed at this.

“What was his name?” asked George, quietly.

Slade hesitated; then a curious look came into his face.

“We never heard,” said he finally.

It was George who laughed this time.

“Mr. Dana is a curious old fellow,” said he. “I wonder if he always jumps so at conclusions.”

“Do you mean to say——” Slade stopped.

“That I am not the messenger? Exactly. Your man must have missed the ‘Nancy Breen.’ I bore dispatches, but they were to General Putnam.”

Slade eyed him narrowly.

“That,” said he, “will astonish Major Hyde.”

“No more than my learning that that same gentleman is a British spy astonished me,” replied George.

The fire was not burning as he desired it. Smiling quietly at the amazed look of Slade, George incautiously lowered the pistol and proceeded to arrange the dryest of the brush. This lapse was like to have been his last act on earth, for Slade bounded upon him like a wild beast. The pistol was knocked from his grasp, and he was crushed to the ground under the man’s bulk. But the few minutes that had passed since the first blow had seen the youth’s strength come back in a great degree. He twisted about, grappled with Slade, and they went writhing and rolling about in the snow.

The Tory had little idea of the work in which he was now engaged; with his tremendous power he should have beaten his lighter opponent into submission in short order. But, save in clumsy wrestling, he did not know how to use his strength. George, on the other hand, never missed a point; he clutched the other by the neck-cloth and twisted it until he had him gasping; and now and then, when he had a chance, he let go with one hand and dashed it into the contorted face.

With the blood streaming from mouth and nose, Slade continued the struggle; slowly the boy was strangling him; the breath labored in his huge chest; in the mounting firelight his small eyes seemed ready to start from his head.

During the entire fight, George’s great dread was that the fire might die out through want of attention. He did not fear Slade, or the outcome of the struggle; but that the waiting Americans upon the west bank might misread his signal gave him much anxiety. Even in the midst of the battling, he managed to keep his attention on the fire. Instead of dying out it grew stronger and stronger; indeed, it roared and sparkled bravely in the wind; its light made the hillside as plain as day. Amazed at this, George finally managed to twist about so in Slade’s clutch that he got a good view of the fire. Still more amazed was he to see a slight form hovering beside it and heaping brush upon it with a generous hand. And as he looked, a clear voice said:

“Never mind this; it is my work. Take care of that man, and leave the fire to me.”

With a sort of fierce joy in his heart, George proceeded to do as he was bidden. But Slade had heard the voice and now saw what was going forward. The fear of what might be the outcome of the beacon light caused him to lose his head. With a wild jerk he freed himself from the young man and leaped to his feet. As he rushed toward the blaze, George was after him like a cat, snatching his heavy pistol from the snow as he went. Slade’s arms were outstretched to seize the girl when the steel barrel fell upon his head; and like an ox he went down in his tracks.

“Now,” spoke the young man quietly, as he looked at Peggy Camp, “if you’ll be so good as to go on as you were, I’ll see to trussing this fellow up.”

Without a word the girl fed the brush to the hungry flames; with the man’s own belt and his woolen neckerchief, George pinioned his arms and legs.

“He’s very awkward to handle,” said the youth when this was accomplished, “and it’s just as well to have him safe.” Then he turned and helped her with a tangled mass of brush which she found it difficult to move. “How did you happen here?” he asked.

“I saw you coming this way,” she answered simply. “And I saw him,” with a nod toward Slade, “following you. He looked as if he meant harm, so I followed him.”

“You did!” He gazed at her steadily.

“You have served me more than once,” she said. “And then, you are my cousin.”

George started with surprise.

“You know that!”

“I have known it all along—from the first, almost. And that is why I have been so—so——”

She hesitated, and he added a word.

“Contemptuous,” he said.

“I felt sure that you knew who Herbert was,” she said, very low, “and that you should be the one to hunt him down seemed unnatural.”

He did not reply; and side by side they stood by the fire watching it curl and roar in the wind. Then she said: “A few moments ago I heard you say that Major Hyde was a British spy. Was that true?”

“It was. I had it from his own lips this very night.” Again he looked at her in the same steady way; then he added: “Some curious things have happened and some equally curious misunderstandings have sprung up since that morning on the wharf near the ‘Brigantine.’”

“I have begun to fear so,” she said.

“Even at the first,” he said, “I could have explained some of them. But you would not allow me. Now, however, I can explain all.”

“I ask your pardon for anything which I have done or said amiss.” She spoke gently. “If you are ready to tell me these things, I am more than ready to listen.”

And so there, on the bleak hillside, with the snow falling and the bitter wind shrieking about them, he began his tale. Dana’s mistake; his own selection by Putnam to trace out the conspirators; Hyde’s plot to have his life because he thought him a false agent to the Tory cause. And here the girl interrupted him for the first time.

“That, then, is what Major Hyde meant when he spoke one night with Captain Henderson at my uncle’s house in Crown Street. He was plotting your destruction. He said you were as false to them. I thought he spoke as an American officer. That is why I warned you against coming into the city upon the night that you rescued my brother and myself at the ‘Wheat Sheaf.’ I felt sure that you had betrayed the American cause.”

Then George proceeded with his narrative. He told how he had given up the mission because of his relationship to them, and how he had plainly told General Putnam why. Then he watched the joy in her face as he related what he had heard Herbert tell his uncle.

“Then my brother is not a renegade!” she cried, with shining eyes.

“It would seem not,” replied George. “And it would seem that General Putnam was in touch with all the facts and all his movements.”

After this they spoke of the eventful night at Corbie’s tavern. The girl listened, and when he had finished, he saw doubt once more in her eyes.

“As you suspect,” she said, “I knew my brother intended going there that night, as I did on the night at the ‘Wheat Sheaf.’ And I followed to do what I could to save him from danger. But if he was innocent,” and her eyes fixed themselves gravely upon George, “why did he see fit to hide afterward?”

“In the light of what I now know,” answered George, “it is clear enough. He feared that he had been recognized and would be arrested. In that event it would be necessary to call upon General Putnam; of course, he would then be released; but at the same time, this release might cause a suspicion of the real state of affairs to get abroad, and so ruin his chances to eventually worm himself into the secrets of the enemy.”

He then recounted how he had been met and been invited by her uncle to their New York home; he was about to tell his conversation with Major Hyde and the dragoon when she interrupted him.

“I heard it all,” she said. “By accident I was seated at the window behind the curtain; and that conversation convinced me more and more that you were what I had come to think you—a person in the pay of both sides—one willing to betray either, according to which way your interest pointed.” Her hand touched his arm lightly, imploringly. “Forgive me,” she said.

After this came the story of the tapestried chamber from his point of view; then he told what Hyde had said about it. She hung her head.

“IT’S THE ARMY OF WASHINGTON”

“I could not see you harmed, no matter what you had done,” she said, simply. “In spite of all that I then believed against you, I could not forget who you were and that you had behaved bravely more than once in my behalf.”

And so they talked and talked and the time sped by. For more than an hour the brush fire crackled on the hillside; and then, when no more fuel was to be had, it was permitted to die away. But still the youth and the girl waited, their garments wrapped about them snugly, for the wind grew more bitter with each passing moment. Then from across the ice-choked river long lines of light began to dimly flicker.

“It’s the army of Washington,” said George, and there was exultation in his voice. “They are about to embark.”

“Then that,” said Peggy Camp, awed, “is really the answer to the signal.”

“It is,” answered he. “And in a few hours, there will, perhaps, be a new master in the town of Trenton.”

And so they stole away through the darkness and snow toward the town.

And when they had disappeared, the burly figure on the ground began to writhe and tug at the bonds that held him. After a long struggle, the neck-cloth began to stretch and slip; a half minute later it had fallen from his arms. Then the belt was off and Slade got painfully upon his feet.

“So we are to have a crossing of the river and a surprise, are we?” said he, as he hobbled toward the town. “Well, we shall see about that, my lad.”