LITMIR.BIZ

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of his path, and when we were come to that trail which leads off toward the York river I left him, although he was mightily surprised at hearing that such a course would bring me to your home more directly than if I continued on the road."

      "Where did you pick him up?" Saul asked impatiently. "Why did you waste time on the scoundrel? It would seem to me that after all he has done it was your business to flog, rather than make friends with him."

      By this time Pierre had so far recovered his breath that it was possible for him to speak distinctly, and without undue effort. Rising to his feet and shrugging his shoulders as he spread his hands palm outward, he said in his mild voice, and with that peculiar accent:

      "To have done so, my friend, would have been to show myself an enemy to you. While I was striving to make my way inside the British lines, pretending that I was simply bent on curiosity, he came up, seemingly having a right of way everywhere within the encampment, and when he greeted me civilly, evidently wondering why I was there alone, I could do no less than treat him as I would have done yesterday, in the hope that something might drop from his lips which would aid me in my search."

      "And did it?" I asked eagerly, for now I began to understand that by bearing himself friendly toward Horry Sims, Pierre had succeeded where otherwise the chances were he must have failed.

      "Indeed it did," the lad said in a tone of triumph. "It was far better than if I had indulged in a game of fisticuffs with him, because his red-coated friends would speedily have come to his relief."

      "What did you learn?" Saul demanded fiercely.

      "Where your mare and Fitzroy's Silver Heels are stabled," was the quiet reply, whereupon I sprang up as if within my body was a stout steel spring which had lately been released.

      "You learned where they were stabled?" I cried excitedly.

      "Ay, that I did," Pierre replied with a shrug of the shoulders, "and without any great labor, for Horry Sims led me at once, and meeting with no interference from the soldiers, to where all the horses which had been taken from the Hamilton plantation were quartered, showing them to me as if it caused him great pain in the heart because such an injury had been done a neighbor."

      "What did he say about it?" Saul demanded.

      "He told me that he was walking along bent only on coming into that town of York in order to see the British encampment, when a squad of Rangers rode past him leading your mare and Fitzroy's Silver Heels. Then I asked if he had no suspicion such a thing might have been thought upon by the Britishers, and he replied that until he was come this time to York Town he had never seen the Rangers. In fact, had not believed they were with my Lord Cornwallis's army, all of which went to prove that he, the snakey Tory, told the red-coated soldiers where they might find the largest and best supply of saddle beasts."

      "Did he explain how it chanced he could wander at will inside the encampment, and also take with him a companion?" I asked.

      "He told me he had come upon a lieutenant of Tarleton's Legion, who, when Cornwallis was in James Town, had been quartered at the Sims plantation, and that this officer had made the way plain for him, saying he might visit the encampment at will."

      If there had been any question in our minds up to this time as to the guilt of Horry Sims, no doubt now remained. We knew, because of having seen the scoundrel, that he had had speech with Simcoe's Rangers before the horses were seized, and his story that one of Tarleton's officers had been quartered at the Sims plantation during Cornwallis's short stay in James Town I knew to be absolutely false. He had played the traitor deliberately, and as the price of his treachery gained admission to the encampment, most like vouched for by the officer who had met him on the road that morning.

      "The hope is," Pierre said after a short pause and with that indescribable gesture, "that the Tory Horry will not suspect I took the trail to York river for any other purpose than that of gaining the Hamilton plantation as quickly as might be."

      "Why?" I asked.

      "Because it is not well he should know I have been in your company this day, else he might suspect that we know of his treachery. It is in my mind that we must keep him to the belief that we know nothing whatsoever concerning his misdeeds of this day."

      "But how can we come at the scoundrel save he does know that same thing?" Saul cried, he ever being hot-headed and not inclined to listen to any plans or arguments when he was burning for revenge, or excited by the desire for pleasure.

      "I have in mind," Pierre said, waving his hands in that odd fashion, "that which I believe will give the Tory lad into our keeping, where we may do by him without fear of interference – "

      "What is it?" I asked eagerly, for all that time we had been awaiting the lad's return from the town of York I had turned over and over in my mind without avail, plans for laying the Tory villain by the heels.

      "It may not be that I shall explain everything now," little Frenchie said as he shrugged his shoulders, "and for the very reason that it is not as yet plain in my own mind. I have a plan which, if it can be worked out, will not only give him to our hands; but also gain possession of at least the mare and Silver Heels despite the fact that they are within the British encampment."

      CHAPTER III

      UNCLE 'RASMUS'S ADVICE

      Plead though I might, little Frenchie would give us no hint as to the plan of which he had spoken; but when we were on our homeward way, walking well within the cover of the foliage lest we inadvertently come upon Horry Sims, he turned the conversation upon such of the fortifications of the town of York as he had seen, and both by his tone and by his manner did I understand that he would give us no inkling whatsoever of that which he had in mind concerning Silver Heels and Saul's mare.

      The lad must have seen more of military movements than we had fancied, for he knew full well all the names of the different kinds of fortification, and could explain their construction, speaking at times almost as a veteran soldier might have spoken.

      Although Saul and I knew nothing whatsoever concerning such matters, we understood from Pierre's speech that he had not only taken note of each half-completed redoubt or bastion; but knew full well what part each might be called to play in the defences of the town, if so be our American army made an attack.

      He told us that the British line extended on an irregular course from the river to the sloping grounds in the rear of the village near what is known as the Pigeon Quarter, and was seemingly intended, when completed, to entirely surround York Town. Across the peninsula of Gloucester and just in the rear of that settlement, he said that another line of entrenchments was being thrown up.

      From what he had seen of the completed work, as well as that which was half finished, or but just begun, he announced that there would be seven redoubts and six batteries on the land side, all to be connected by entrenchments, and that on the river bank preparations were making for a line of batteries, the largest, or grand battery, being near the church.

      As for outworks, Pierre said there would be three redoubts on the margin of the ravine to the southwest of the town, another a little eastward of the road to Hampton, two on the extreme right near the river, and the Fusileer's redoubt on the left.

      He also told us that my Lord Cornwallis had made his headquarters at Governor Nelson's house, for it can well be understood that our governor of Virginia, noted for more than a leaning toward the cause of liberty, would not remain within the limits of York Town, or anywhere that it was likely the Britishers could get hold of him, while General Cornwallis was occupying this portion of our state of Virginia.

      More than this: Little Frenchie in his quiet way had learned that my Lord Cornwallis's army numbered nearabout seven thousand men, meaning that such number of British troops were encamped either at Gloucester or in the town of York.

      When I questioned him as to how he had gathered all this information, which it seemed to me none save an adroit man might gain, he put me off with a laugh, declaring that while Englishmen and Frenchmen were natural enemies, these red-coated soldiers seemed to take an especial liking for a small French boy who had lived no nearer France than New Orleans.

      It came into my mind more than once that mayhap Pierre had found

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