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 bullets to the Town by the River?" she asked in a low voice.

The ladies glanced at each other. Sally could see assent upon most of their faces. Here, their expressions seemed to say, is one who has no family ties to prevent her from going, who would not be as sorely missed, if worst should come to worst, as the others! This hurt poor Sally, even while she realized that these honest-faced women were only dumbly expressing the truth—that the very lack of a home and family made her an invaluable messenger.

"Aye, Sally," said Mistress Williams finally, in response to an inquiring look bent upon her by Keturah Harrison. "Ye may help Zenas and then return wi' him to my house, for, while there be ever danger i' this war time, I see no added risk for ye to go now. Good dames," she got to her tired feet and turned to the others, "I must back to mine own work, which waits for me as it does for ye, I ha' no doubt! Let us adjourn, then, and bid our hostess thanks for this meal. An it be decided where we shall meet next time, I gather word will be brought, as before." And the gathering broke up with that murmur of voices ever attendant upon a feminine gathering.

It was mid-afternoon before Zenas had finished his work and, with slave help, had slung the heavy saddlebags over his and Sally's horses, and they

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 were off. Hot, hot the sun beat down. They soon passed that junction of the Second Road—sometimes called the Dark Lane—with the First Road, which is now West Orange Center, soon passed the Old Burial Ground and were well on their way to the settlement.

Sally drew her ugly sunbonnet forward over her eyes for, although the sun was at her back, the dazzling glare on dusty road and on the gravestones in the Burial Ground blinded her. Zenas continually removed his three-cornered hat to wipe his streaming brow. They rode silently, for it was too warm to make conversation. It was only when they were passing the church that Sally, glancing sidelong past the scoop of her sunbonnet, uttered an exclamation, then turned her face quickly forward again.

"Do not look, Zenas," she said in a low voice to the boy, who had fallen back beside her, "lest ye alarm them! This very moment methought I saw James peering at me from the door o' you church!"

"James!" muttered Zenas skeptically. "Nay, what would he here, Sally? He is on his way to the Ball House!"

"Indeed, I am positive 'twas James!" said Sally. "He was talking to that villain Stockton—the one who took me to New York, ye mind, as prisoner!" She shuddered nervously. "Let us trot!" she implored.

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 Zenas, who had turned in his saddle in spite of the girl's protest, now drew an excited breath and dug his heels into his horse's sides.

"Aye, 'tis James! And he hath leaped upon a horse—aye, and t'other! Ride ye, Sally!" cried Zenas. "Ride ye as the wind, for they come!"

Now the two horses galloped neck to neck. They were handicapped by the heavy saddlebags which thumped them at every foot—not only them, but which flopped and bumped against the riders' legs, as well.

"N-nay, Ze-Zenas!" gasped Sally at last. "We cannot stand this—this pace long! Let us turn in at Master Munn's Tav-tavern! James will not—not dare to follow us, for he—he knows Master Munn be—be—patriot!"

She reckoned without James Williams's impetuous nature, however. Barely had Sally and Zenas reached the training ground, across from which stood Samuel Munn's Tavern; barely had they drawn rein so abruptly that their steeds were thrown almost upon their haunches, to ride around the inn to the stable yard, than James dashed through the gate, followed by the thin, wiry figure of Stockton, who was minus a uniform. Straight up to the great inn barn rode James, where he dismounted and called to Zenas.

The latter, pressing back into the shadows inside the stable, whither he and Sally had hastily

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 led their horses, gestured to the girl not to stir or answer.

"Ho, Zenas!" called James, with all the authority of an older brother to a younger one. "Come forth, ye young fool—I saw ye enter here!"

"Art sure?" Stockton, upon his horse, pursed his lips dubiously, eying the barn door with blinking gaze, for the lowering sun shone full into his close-set eyes. Sally, returning his gaze from the depths of the dusky barn interior, knew that he could not see her, blinded as he was. "Art sure, sir? I see them not!"

"Ye saw them turn in here, did ye not?" asked James angrily. He turned back to the stable door. "Ye will be brought forth, then?" he taunted. And coming straightway into the barn, dragged a bitterly protesting Zenas out into the sunlight, followed slowly by Sally, leading the horses, for, still upon her own, she had leaned over to capture the reins of Zenas's horse.

"Now!" James let go of the younger boy's collar so roughly that the other staggered, would have fallen had he not brought up reeling against Sally's horse. "What mischief be ye brewing, young jackanapes, eh?"

Sally spoke up. "Why do ye pursue us?" she demanded hotly. "We be but on an errand for your mother!"

"Ho, who gave ye privilege to speak, milady?"

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 inquired James. "Shut thy trap and do not interfere where ye are not asked!"

"Quarreling wi' the wench gets us naught," interposed Stockton sourly, who preferred to do the quarreling himself. He pointed at Sally. "What hath she there, tied to her saddle?"

Sally started, tried to conceal her chagrin; but James's quick eyes caught it. "Ah, trouble here!" he exclaimed in a voice of triumph. "Methought that ye were in too much o' a hurry, Zenas!"

Striding toward Sally's horse, with obvious intention of rifling the saddlebags to determine their contents, he was interrupted by a young whirlwind. It was Zenas!

"Touch—touch you bags, will ye!" snarled Zenas. Sally, staring, clasped her hands as the two lads went to the ground, to roll over and over, each trying to gain the mastery of the other. Grave as the situation was, though, Sally could scarcely control hysterical laughter, for poor Zenas looked like nothing more than a bantam rooster, with his angry red face, his three-cornered hat flung into the dirt and his queue unloosed to stand on end like a cock's comb. "I'll—I'll teach ye! I'll teach ye!" he kept panting.

But, despite his courage, the odds were against the plucky fellow. Even as Stockton hastily was dismounting to participate in the already uneven battle, James deftly caught his brother's body in a

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 scissors clinch between his knees and then rolled him over to twist his hands behind him and so jerk him to his feet, to hold him thus captive.

Sally leaned forward upon her horse. "Brave James!" she applauded sarcastically. Then her voice changed. "Are ye not ashamed to badger poor Zenas thus?" she cried. "For all ye know, your mother may ha' sent us wi' grain for poor ill Granny White near the Dark Woods, and ye fain would play the hero and—and—keep the poor old woman from her meal! He upon ye!"

James, at that, faltered. "Grain?" he muttered. "Grain for Granny White?" He suddenly laughed. "Ye will have to think o' a better story than that, milady, for I took her grain to Granny White for Mother, myself, day before yesterday!"

Sally's gaze shifted, then she shook her head. "Nay," she was commencing, desperately, "methinks 'twas not for Granny White, after all! It was for"

"Samuel Munn, doubtless!" interrupted James ironically. "Since the fat innkeeper doth need it so badly!" He frowned, all at once. "Get down, wench," he ordered surlily, "and try no more tricks upon me! What said ye, sir?" Still holding Zenas's hands behind him, James turned at the Tory's exclamation.

"I said," repeated Stockton, startled out of his

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 usual superciliousness, as his fingers busily prodded the saddlebags on Zenas's horse, "methinks I feel bullets!"

"Bullets!" James turned upon Sally, as she reluctantly slid down from her horse. "So," he jeered, "that was what my mother was about this morn, after all! Bullet moulding, eh? Well, we be the gainers for it." And his young mouth became set and grim.

Sally glanced around the deserted stable yard helplessly, and Zenas groaned. Then, all at once, the girl screamed for help.

James only grinned. "Ye gain nothing by screeching!" he mocked. "Think ye we did not know Samuel Munn was absent before we followed ye here? Take us for boobies, mistress?"

But again Sally's cries shattered the sunlit stillness of the inn yard. "Help! Help!" Then Stockton's hand was clamped over the girl's mouth.

"Odd's fiends!" James had torn a piece of hemp from his pocket and was busily binding his brother's hands behind him. He glanced up impatiently at Stockton. "Could ye not keep her quiet, sir?" he snapped. "Not that it will do ye any good an ye yell!" he added to Sally.

But all at once his jaw dropped. For out of the kitchen door came pelting Samuel Munn and a stout hostler, as well. And Stockton and James

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 were caught in their, own net, for the innkeeper posted the other man, armed with a heavy club, at the stable gate.

"Now, good sirs, canst tell the reason o' this disturbance?" said Master Munn, advancing to them.

James Williams turned to him sullenly. "There be no need for interference here, Master Munn," he said coolly. "My mother bade me after Zenas, here, who, stealing some o' her best silver and much else besides, was making toward the Town by the River wi' this wench—the Todds' bond maid! My friend and I did pursue them at my mother's request. That be all, sir! Naught for outsiders' business, as ye can see!"

Samuel Munn scratched a puzzled head. "Well," he was beginning undecidedly when Zenas, who had been too astounded to speak, advanced with blazing eyes.

"That be a lie!" cried Zenas. "My mother be sending Sally and me" Here his gaze fell upon Sally, who shook her head at him violently. He faltered. "We be going at my mother's behest, sir. I swear to that! I cry your aid, good Master Munn!"

The innkeeper scratched his head again. "Nay, I be no hand for mysteries," he was beginning irritably, when his glance chanced to rest upon Stockton. Even as the tavern master gazed, the Tory's malignant eyes shot a look of hatred at the hostler

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 who was posted at the stable gate. Master Munn's own glance grew keen and watchful.

"Yonder fellow hath not an honest look," he was thinking, when Sally broke away from Stockton's restraining grasp. Running forward, she pulled Master Munn aside.

"Ye do know me, sir," she said hurriedly. "These"—her voice dropped so that her listener had to bend his head to catch her words—"these bags contain bullets for Captain Littell o' the 'Jersey Blues,' sir. Your own wife did help to mould them, sir! Oh, cannot ye detain these Tories and gi' us aid?"

At that, Samuel Munn nodded. His kind, jolly face had instantly sobered. And now Sally, glancing up at him imploringly, saw that she had not appealed in vain, for here was a true patriot.

"Ho, 'Sias, watch you gate!" His sinewy hand fell heavily upon James Williams's shoulder, and he turned to Stockton. But he turned too late! That gentleman had leaped to his horse and was off, past the astonished 'Sias who, instead of offering resistance, could only stand with mouth agape and eyes popping, staring after the horse which had so nearly ridden him down and was now disappearing in a cloud of dust toward Newark.

"Zounds take the man for a fool!" For a moment Sally thought Master Munn was going to have a fit of apoplexy, so deeply purple did he turn. But

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 the next moment he gave a roar of laughter and pointed helplessly at the comical figure of 'Sias, although his hand did not loosen hold on James. "Hist!" gurgled and choked Master Munn. "Now will ye hear what 'Sias would have done had he had the chance!" And amid fresh roars of laughter from his master, 'Sias's voice, indeed, could be heard droning on and on about his own prowess and lack of opportunity to prove it, as he shook his heavy club and gestured largely.

Sally, however, turned forlorn eyes upon mine host. "Well," she said unhappily, "this does indeed add trouble to our journey, for while that man be loose, sir, there be danger!"

Master Munn, at that, sobered. "How so, Sally?" he asked kindly.

"Cannot ye see?" Sally made a helpless gesture. "Wi' that man escaped, there can be no doubt that he will wait along the road, some place, and surprise us, wi' danger to our burden!"

"Nay, Sally, ye did not think I would let ye and Zenas go on alone after failing ye thus!" Master Munn, as he spoke, swung James around by the collar, marched him across the tavern yard to the stable, where, opening a small door which led into a saddle room, he thrust the unwilling captive inside. "There!" exclaimed Master Munn, securing the door from the outside. "Let young Williams ponder his politics, now!"

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 "But the window!" pointed out Sally.

"Nay, the window be tightly wedged shut!" Master Munn turned inquiringly toward Zenas, ambled back to him.

"Ho, mean ye to let me stay wi' my hands bound?" grumbled the boy.

"Poor Zenas!" Sally flew ahead of Master Munn to tug and yank at the stout knot James had tied the hemp into around his brother's wrists.

"Nay, thy pretty fingers be too frail! Let me!" And with one slash of his hunting knife. Master Munn had the knot cut. Then, as Zenas rubbed the red marks from his wrists, he nodded at both him and Sally. "Wait for me yonder," he said. "I will but find my coat and meet ye there. Ho, 'Sias, mine horse, fellow—around at t'other door!"

Sally, once more upon her horse, watched Zenas sympathetically as he chafed his wrists which, even in the short time they had been bound, had become swollen. Tis the fortunes o' war, Zenas," she said at last. "Next time may be thy turn!"

"I'll fortunes o' war him!" ejaculated Zenas angrily. "The varlet! Where did Master Munn put him?" he added questioningly.

"I' the stable room," said Sally.

"I—I wonder an he will be safe?"

"What mean ye?" asked Sally wonderingly. "He cannot escape."

Zenas flushed. "I mean—think ye no one will

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 come along and—and hurt him?" he continued nervously. "I would not want any patriot to hang"—Zenas gulped—"to hang James for treason!"

Sally paled. "Nay, I know not! Let us ask Master Munn to let him go!" And she started to climb down from her horse. Just at that moment, however, Master Munn issued from the tap-room door of his inn, and she called anxiously to him. He listened to her stammering fears and then chuckled.

"A fine pair o' war birds ye be!" he said. "What would ye? Give James back the freedom he hath but now misused against ye?"

"We-ell," Sally was commencing. But Samuel Munn shook his head.

"Nay, ha' no fears!" he told them. "James be in no danger at all, and 'twill do him no harm to sit i' the saddle room for a while after the mean trick he played upon ye, Zenas! Too many admirers o' good Mistress Mary Williams be i' this settlement for aught o' harm to come to one o' her sons, Tory though he be! Nay, let him be! Who knows," mine host stopped to chuckle, "who knows, James may come out o' you a good patriot!"

"Ye do not know James!" declared James's brother grimly, however. "He be that stubborn that confinement will only make him more bitter Tory!"

"Mayhap!" Master Munn shrugged indifferent shoulders. "But we will let him cool his heels, ne'er-

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 theless! I ha' told 'Sias, an we be not back this even, to ope the door at dark, in time for him to find his way home to supper!"

He turned toward his horse, which 'Sias at that moment led up, when Sally, whose idle gaze had been fixed upon the road toward the Mountain, uttered an exclamation.

Master Munn paused with one foot in the stirrup, turned toward her. "Eh?" he asked.

"Yon comes a rider i' desperate hurry!" cried Sally, pointing excitedly in the direction she was staring. Everyone's eyes turned to follow her pointing finger, and Master Munn stepped to the ground and went around his horse to the center of the road. "He rides hard!" he ejaculated. And stepped back out of the way as the horse and rider reached the waiting group and the former was reined in so hard he went up on his hind legs.

"A warning!" cried the militiaman, whom Sally now recognized to be one of the Todds' neighbors. "Report to your company, sir, at once, and spread ye this message as ye go! The enemy be reported as landing at Elizabeth Town Point and also as approaching up the Hackensack from Staten Island! There be rumors o' battle at the Town by the River soon! Haste ye!" And, with a forward leap, the messenger was off again upon his heaving horse, soon disappearing down the road.

Samuel Munn turned a sobered face upon the

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 two young folk who stared back at him. "This gives a different aspect, again," he said seriously. "I cannot go wi' ye, for both 'Sias and I must report to our militia company at once. Best return wi' your burdens to the Mountain and there seek counsel wi' the women who sent ye! 'Twill not be safe for ye to go to Newark, now!"

With a grave nod, the tavern keeper returned to the door, where waited a maid with his powder horn and musket. Then, with 'Sias at his side, also equipped, he set forth upon a run, motioning to the maid to take care of his horse.

Zenas and Sally looked at each other. "This be a fine kettle o' fish!" said the boy, at last. "But we had best do as he bade us, Sally. Let us return the bullets to Mistress Harrison for safe keeping!"

But Sally shook her head. "Never!" she cried passionately. "Think ye we are going to admit failure by such a deed? Nay, let us on to the Town by the River! An the enemy come, all the more need for these bullets we bring to the 'Jersey Blues'!"

And picking up her horse's reins, Sally set out at a brisk trot toward the Town by the River.

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ENAS, after his first stare, trotted after Sally, and because his horse was of finer breed—a riding mare belonging to his mother—he soon passed the girl and turned to grin at her over his shoulder.

"What makes ye so slow, mistress?" he mocked. "Methinks ye will arrive at Newark next week instead b' this day!"

Sally smiled back at him. Her cheeks blazed beneath the sunbonnet, which seemed to scoop all the heat there was's she rode along. "Oh, Zenas," she eyed with longing gaze the cool depths of a woodland they were passing, "an we could only stop and rest!"

But the boy shook his head. "Nay, ye be the very one who did say to go wi' the bullets! So, say I, the sooner we get them to our men, the better!"

"Ye be right," sighed Sally. Yet the great copper ball of the sun seemed to be burning a hole straight through her shoulders, the feel of her horse's heaving sides grew to be more and more unbearable, until at last she called to Zenas: "I—nay,

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 Zenas, I cannot see! The road be turning black before me!" And Zenas looked back in time to see the girl slump forward in her saddle, a pathetic, unconscious burden.

It was not many minutes later that Sally opened her eyes and felt wonderingly of her dripping face. She was lying upon some soft turf beside the road, whither Zenas had managed to half drag, half carry her. Zenas himself, a frightened pallor showing beneath the tan and freckles of his face, was kneeling beside her, the water, which he had obtained from a near-by brook, still brimming in his three-cornered hat.

"Ye did—did swoon, Sally!" he stammered.

"Nay, 'twas the heat," murmured the girl. She struggled to a sitting posture. "Where be the horses?" she asked anxiously.

"Right here behind ye," said Zenas reassuringly. "It must have been the heat, Sally, as ye say. Then, too, ye did work hard this morn i' Mistress Harrison's kitchen, preparing the noon meal."

"But I always work hard," protested Sally wonderingly. "Indeed, 'tis not like me to ha' the megrims—only fine ladies ha' the megrims, Zenas!"

"Mayhap ye be a fine lady and know it not, Sally," returned Zenas, grinning, his fright at Sally's sudden collapse beginning to leave him. He looked at her soberly, then. "Think ye ye will be able to continue the journey?" he asked worriedly.

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 Sally got slowly to her feet, clenched her teeth at the sudden dizziness which at once swooped upon her. "Aye," she said, breathing hard. "I will go on!" And, with the boy's help, she remounted her horse, grasping his mane when the dizziness threatened her once more. But gradually it wore off, for the brief rest had done her good.

Now, however, the sun began to descend in the western sky, dropping more swiftly as it neared the line of the Mountain ridge. Sally, glancing back, drew a tremulous breath at the glorious beauty of that sunset glow—great purple clouds were banking up, pierced with crimson and golden rays. Zenas, looking back at it, thought only with relief that it would grow cooler; but Sally caught, somehow, the meaning of that beauty, the heavenly promise of to-morrow; some poet ancestor must have given her understanding. She said nothing, though, and the two tired horses plodded along, past the occasional farm, past enemy-wrought ruins, through brief, refreshing bits of forest land.

But as they neared the Town by the River—indeed, long before they began to climb the last hill along whose ridge lies the present High Street, they commenced to meet people fleeing toward the safety of the Mountain. The refugees were mostly women and children and old men, some on foot, some riding horseback; but all burdened with household treasures which they would not leave to

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 the vandal hands of the British. Zenas stopped the first few and was informed in trembling accents that the enemy were truly gathering on the east bank of the Passaic River for an obvious attack upon Newark.

"And they do say 'tis General Clinton himself who comes to direct this attack," said the old man who had answered the boy's hasty questions. "It be a terrible thing," he went on simply, "to have to leave one's home thus! The old need their own things around them; but we, who live here i' this New Jersey which seems so easy for the enemy to harass and raid—we may return and find all o' our things burned or destroyed or stolen! Three times ha' my daughter and her little ones"—he motioned to the drooping woman upon a horse near by—"and I been forced to flee to the safety o' the Newark Mountains, wi' her husband away fighting!"

"Best haste, then," Zenas told him warningly, "for, an the enemy do come to Newark from Elizabeth Town, they may march by way o' the Second Road and so meet ye, after all!"

"They will not meet us," responded the old man grimly, "for we shall hide i' the underbrush, an we hear marching feet!" But, all the same, he trembled with anxiety as he hastened back to his daughter's side; and it was not long before, leading the horse upon which perched three tow-headed children, with his daughter's horse following—and both Sally

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 and Zenas noticed, with pity, the tiny baby she was carrying in her arms—they set forth upon the road again.

But they were not the only pitiful groups, for the lame and the hah and the blind came with ever-increasing numbers. Again and again did Zenas and Sally have to draw rein upon the narrow lane and remain at one side to allow such to pass, for they would have been ridden down in their infirmities. Grim silence was upon most of them, though a few lamented here and there. But the same determination was evinced by all, the determination to gain the protection of the First and Second Mountains, beyond which the enemy, save a few spies and Tories, never did pass, during the term of the war.

Dusk came on apace. This, however, did not prevent Sally from recognizing at last a certain thin, shrewish-looking figure among the refugees, riding jerkily along on a familiar horse. "Mistress Todd!" she ejaculated. And wished at once she had held her peace.

It was too late. Mistress Todd drew rein in amazement and peered at the girl over her baby son's head, whom she carried in her arms as she rode.

"How now, Sally?" she snapped. "What do ye here?"

Sally nodded to Mistress Banks, who rode just

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 behind her friend, with Mary Todd upon the saddle before her. "I—I" began Sally stammeringly, hating herself for that terrible self-consciousness which ever descended upon her at sight of her mistress.

"Well?" Mistress Todd gazed sharply from Sally to Zenas, whose bland, undisturbed look met hers without flinching. Suddenly, the lady rode her horse closer to the girl. "Well?" she asked impatiently again.

"Sally doth mean to say that she be riding wi' me on an errand for my mother," said Zenas coolly.

"I asked not your explanation, Zenas Williams!" Mistress Todd turned to eye him up and down. Then her compelling glance sought Sally's face, into which the desperate color had flooded. "Well, girl, answer me! What do ye here?"

"I—I" gulped Sally. Her voice died away helplessly.

Before the indignant Zenas could once more interfere. Mistress Banks's good-natured voice came from behind them. "Nay, Molly, the girl doubtless hath business here. Let her be on her way and we on ours, for I like not tarrying o'erlong!"

"Business, indeed!" exclaimed Mistress Todd angrily. "Nay, what could a bond wench like her ha' to do i' Newark at such a time! Turn thy horse around, girl! I like not this sudden shift o' mistresses! I left ye i' charge o' Mistress Ball! Why

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 should Mistress Williams be ordering ye off on her affairs wi' this son o' hers? Humph! 'Tis a strange mix-up, indeed, forsooth!"

"But—but—I can explain!" said Sally, not daring to tell her mistress that she had left her in charge of no one at all—that she, Sally, would have fared ill had not Uzal Ball offered her his mother's hospitality. But Zenas suddenly spoke.

"An ye like not the plans made for Sally, mistress, why did ye not stay at home, yourself, and keep her beneath your own eye?" he asked bluntly.

This time it was Mistress Todd's turn to blush. Furious red surged into her narrow face, furious anger into her voice.

"None o' thy tongue, Zenas Williams!" she answered, thin-lipped. "Sally, ye heard me bid ye turn your horse around and return to the Mountain! Why do ye not obey?"

"The enemy's bivouac lights are across the river, e'en now!" exclaimed Mistress Banks. "We ha' not occupied our tavern for days, now—it be too near the river for comfort! But Master Banks would not let us remain i' Newark, Sally—not e'en though we had sought refuge at a friend's house high on the ridge. So best obey and come wi' us, lass!"

But Sally, to Zenas's secret relief, shook her head firmly. "Nay, Mistress Banks, thank ye kindly; but I cannot!" she responded respectfully. "I ha' something o' importance to deliver at the

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 Town, and so I must go on!" She turned to Mistress Todd imploringly. "Oh, ha' ye not heard from dear, kind Master Todd at all yet? I do long for news o' him! Hath he not been released?"

"Ye know an he were released, we would ha' come home straightway," the wife told her sourly. "Only a fool would ask that question! But I can guess ye are but trying to change the subject—ye do not really care about Master Todd!"

The hurt tears started into the girl's eyes. "Ye judge me harshly, mistress," she said brokenly. "Indeed, I do care, for ever he was good and kind to me!"

Mistress Todd sniffed at the implied reproach. "Well," she demanded irately, "art going to return or not?"

"Nay, mistress!"

"Humph, ye would offer open defiance, then? What think ye Parson Chapman would say to that?"

"He would commend Sally for her bravery!" burst out Zenas, who had been burning to get back into the conversation. Now he rode his horse between mistress and maid. "Ride on, Sally!" he ordered.

But Sally shook her head forlornly. "I cannot leave wi'out giving little Mary just one kiss, Zenas!" she returned, guiding her horse to Mistress Banks's side, while Mary's mother watched

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 her with a sneer, only half concealed by the oncoming darkness. "But, stay—what be the matter wi' Mary?" added Sally, in alarm, as the child neither stirred nor extended eager, chubby arms in the loving greeting she always had for Sally.

"Nay, she only be asleep!" said Mistress Banks, smiling at the terror in the older girl's voice. "Ye do be nervous, for this little maid cares not whether she be in a trundle bed or on horseback! She doth play so hard through the day, 'tis no easy matter to waken her after supper!"

"And the baby?" Sally looked yearningly at the motionless bundle in Mistress Todd's arms; but she did not offer to go near.

Again it was Mistress Banks who answered, for Mistress Todd maintained a morose silence. "Aye, he be fat and well, Sally—thriving apace," she said reassuringly. "Sally," she bent toward the girl confidentially, "why do ye not confide your business wi' Mistress Todd—explain the reason for your strange errand to the Town by the River at this dangerous time? Mayhap, then, her advice to ye would be to go, i'stead o' ordering your return!"

Mistress Todd shook her head angrily before the girl could answer. "Nay, knowing the wench as I do, I can assure ye that she be on fool's errand! Nothing she can say will alter mine opinion, so let us continue our own journey! We be but wasting time and breath, here!" And clucking to her horse,

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 ignoring both girl and boy who watched her, she rode off into the darkness, followed by her kind-hearted friend, who gave them each farewell greeting before she left.

Sally sighed. "I wonder an she be right?" she said, half to herself. "I wonder an I be wrong to disobey her thus, in not returning to the Mountain!"

Zenas started his horse and Sally, perforce, followed. "Nay," he said sturdily, "ye be right, for our men need the bullets, Sally! Why bother your head o'er her words?"

"But, still, Zenas, she doth be my mistress!" said Sally slowly. "The terms o' the bond hath said that!"

"Ye be wrong, Sally," replied Zenas, "for she did forfeit that authority when she deserted ye. Rest easy on that score, for I do feel sure that Parson Chapman will so agree and dub ye not in wicked rebellion! Nay, rather he will admire ye, Sally—he is not named the 'fighting Parson' for naught—well he knows how bullets be ever needed by our men!"

So reassured, Sally trotted down the hill after her companion. "Where be we going, Zenas?" she asked presently.

Dark and silent, the little hamlet lay at their feet. No cheerful lights flickered in kitchen windows, no lanterns swung like fireflies to and fro

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 across the village lanes, for no one was left to carry them, or, if they were left, they were hiding in darkened homes.

Zenas drew rein at the Four Corners—where the Broad Lane was crossed by the Market Road—and looked about him dubiously. "I know not," he answered, then. "An I could only find out where Captain Littell be!"

"But, Zenas, he doth live i' Springfield—what would he here i' Newark?" remonstrated Sally.

"I know he lives i' Springfield; but Mistress Harrison assured me the 'Blues' did ha' their headquarters here i' Newark." Zenas straightened his shoulders. "Let us go to the Rising Sun Tavern and see!"

"Mistress Banks said they were not living there now—that they had removed to another house," objected Sally.

Zenas made an impatient sound, to be described only as a snort. "What ails ye, Sally?" he demanded irritably. "Such a wet blanket I ne'er saw!"

Sally sighed. "I must be tired," she said. "I wish this errand were well accomplished and we able to sleep somewhere!"

"Never fear," replied Zenas confidently, turning his horse toward the tavern he had mentioned, "we shall be successful. Once we deliver these bullets to Captain Littell, he will find us quarters!"

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 The tired boy and girl proceeded in silence, then, for the short distance to the tavern. It was just as Zenas, drawing rein before the dark, cheerless-looking building, was about to slip off from his horse, that a low, husky voice spoke from the shadows. "Halt, who goes there?"

Zenas stiffened, one foot still caught in the stirrup. "I, Zenas Williams," he answered tremulously.

"Advance, Zenas Williams, and gi' the password!"

Silence. Then Sally, from her horse, spoke impulsively: "Nay, we ha' no knowledge o' the password!" She shrank back as a tall figure approached her, musket over his shoulder.

"Who be ye, young mistress, and what be doing here i' this town?" asked the stranger sternly. "Know ye not the women have been ordered by Captain Camp to leave?"

"Aye."

"Then what do ye here?"

"That," said Sally in a stubborn voice, "I cannot tell ye until" Her sentence ended in a gasp, for all at once she found herself snatched from her horse and placed roughly upon her feet.

"Ye gi' me defiance, mistress?" growled the big man, who stood over her.

Sally threw back her shoulders and adjusted her disarranged gown which his uncouth jerking

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 her from her steed had almost torn. "Nay," she said quietly, "I gi' ye no defiance. I merely did say we knew not the password; but I would not tell ye, ne'ertheless, my errand here until"

"Call ye not that defiance? Ye"

"Nay—how know I ye be not an enemy!" cried Sally indignantly. "Take me to your commanding officer at once, sir!"

"Zounds, ye lack not insolence, mistress!" The big man's voice was full of amazement. "I think"

A new voice spoke suddenly from the darkness behind them. "It matters not what ye think, sir! I will do the thinking! Why did ye not report to me, at once, the arrival of these newcomers?" As a commanding figure came forward swiftly, the man beside Sally saluted and stepped back. But the other addressed him imperatively. "Who are these?"

"I was but trying to discover. Captain Camp," the man whom Zenas and Sally now knew to be the sentry was beginning in an injured tone. He was interrupted by the girl.

"Not Captain Nathaniel Camp to whom His Excellency did gi' the cannon wi' which to defend Newark!" she cried, whirling toward the officer.

"E'en so." Captain Camp stooped to peer into her eager face. "But I know ye not, little mistress," he added kindly.

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 Sally dimpled in the darkness. "Is not surprising, sir," she replied. "For I know ye only from what I heard the cook, Martha, at this tavern did tell Mistress Banks one day. She had just waited on ye, and ye had told some friends of General Washington's gift. Oh, Zenas," the girl turned relievedly to him, "I be sure Captain Camp will know o' Captain Littell's whereabouts!"

"Captain Littell?" repeated the officer in a surprised tone. "Why, he is in yonder tavern. Stay, we will go thither!" And he led the way toward the somber doorway of the darkened building before which they had been standing.

But once inside the tap room, Sally looked around her in surprise. The room was cheerful with candlelight, though rather warm and breathless, for every exit had been well covered with some dark, heavy stuff, that not a single candle ray might escape. Three or four men, in uniforms of blue, obviously home-made, were seated at a corner table, poring over a map, and they looked up in astonishment at the entrance of Sally. Captain Camp beckoned to one, who rose courteously and came toward them.

"Captain Littell," said Nathaniel Camp, "here be a young maid and lad who would speak wi' ye!"

Captain Littell bowed gravely in return for the curtsey Sally dropped him. "Aye?" he asked, in a low, deep voice.

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 Sally took a step toward him. "We bring ye bullets, sir, from the Mountain settlement," she said.

"Bullets!" Sally wondered if she interpreted aright the glance he gave to Captain Camp. Did it contain relief? "Ye bring us bullets?" he repeated slowly, as the men at the table raised their heads and turned toward them.

"Aye, sir," nodded the girl, as Zenas stood silent and shy behind her. "The women o' the Mountain and thereabouts did meet at Mistress Keturah Harrison's and mould 'em, sir!"

"Where are the bullets, young mistress?" asked Captain Littell.

"We did leave them i' the saddlebags on the horses, sir—outside," answered Sally, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.

Captain Littell turned to his associate. "Will ye ha' the saddlebags removed hither, sir?" he requested.

Captain Camp strode out of the room, careful to slip quickly through the door so that no light might go with him. But in a moment he was back, an odd expression upon his face.

"Nay, there are no horses in front o' this tavern," he said, looking searchingly at Sally and Zenas.

Sally's jaw dropped. "No horses, sir?" Her hands flew to her heart. "Why, where are our horses?" she gasped.

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 Zenas turned toward the door; but before he could lift the latch, he was arrested by Captain Littell's stern voice. "Stay, sir—methinks this doth need explaining, sir!"

Zenas turned back and looked at him wildly. "But the bul—bullets! Someone hath stolen the bullets, sir! E'en now the varlet may escape!"

"Still, matters do need explaining," answered Captain Littell coolly. "How know we ye came on horses? How know we this be no British ruse to ascertain for themselves our headquarters, here?"

Sally wrung her hands. "Oh, sir, this be no British ruse, I do vow! And precious time goes! Stay," a sudden thought struck her, "the sentry can vouch for our coming on horses!" She held up her gown. "He almost tore my frock when he jerked me from my horse!"

Captain Camp stepped to the door, slipped through a narrow entrance, and returned shortly with the sentry, a tall, stupid-looking man when he came forward into the candlelight.

"Horses, sir?" he repeated in answer to Captain Littefs sharp question.

"Aye—did ye take this young lady from her horse, as she doth accuse?"

Zenas started forward impetuously, his shyness vanishing. "Nay, sir," he reiterated, "e'en now the varlet who stole our horses doth escape! I tell ye. Captain Littell, I did secure the horses to two

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 trees before I followed Captain Camp into this tavern! Let me go forth and search. Mayhap," hopefulness would not be killed in the boy's voice, "mayhap they did not find the right trees!"

"Silence, sir!" said Captain Littell sternly. "That be nonsensical! Now, Crane—didst see aught o' horses?"

Crane! Sally started at the name. As though by magic, the smell of the sea came to her nostrils, once more she stood upon the deck of a small schooner, with the white sea gulls wheeling and circling overhead, with the distant view of greenhilled Staten Island delighting her as they sailed for Newark Bay, with a sullen Tory behind her, who did not come near her that livelong trip! Crane! Sally's eyes met the small, close-set ones of the sentry, and she knew him!

"Nay, Captain Littell," said the sentry. Crane, calmly. "This maid and boy came afoot. There were no horses, sir!"

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UT of a shocked silence, Sally spoke. "That man doth lie!" she cried. "I dub him Tory, sir!"

No one answered her. Captain Camp and Captain Littell merely looked at her, and Sally's chin sank upon her breast, all her confidence blasted by the suspicion so evident in their gaze and in the steady gaze of the men seated at the table behind them. But, standing there, she felt all at once that she could not, must not fail those brave, patriotic women who had trusted her. She raised her blue eyes and started forward again, her hands clasped imploringly.

"Oh, sirs, will ye not let Zenas, here, go wi' escort and see an the horses be really gone?" she pleaded. "Indeed," the tears started into her tired eyes, "we did work very hard to deliver the bullets and—and—the ladies—Mistress Harrison and all—will be marvelously disappointed an ye do not receive them safely! Oh, Zenas," she turned to the boy who, silent and overwhelmed, stood beside her, staring dumbly at the doubting faces

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 before him, "have ye not somewhat on ye to identify ye to these gentlemen? As for me," she made a weary, sad little gesture, "I—I—know not mine own identity, sirs—only that I be Master Todd's bond maid, Sally!"

Zenas turned to her quickly. "Nay, ye must not mind, Sally," he said, honest sympathy in his voice, "for some day I feel sure ye will find trace o' kin! As for me, sirs," he straightened his broad young shoulders, "I be Zenas Williams, sirs—son o' Nathaniel and Mary Williams o' the Mountain!"

Something about his manly way of looking the others straight in the eye was obviously dispelling doubt when mention of his father's name brought a dark frown to Captain Littell's brow. He motioned his companion aside, and, as they bent their heads together, both Zenas and Sally heard the words, "Loyalist—watched by the Committee," before the patriots turned back.

But now anger engulfed Sally. Was that morning's hard work to benefit only the enemy, after all? Had that long, hot ride been taken in vain?

"I tell ye, sirs," she burst out passionately, "this sentry be Tory! Why, he"

She was interrupted by a startled exclamation from Captain Camp. "Where did Crane go?"

Both Sally and Zenas whirled around. But the space behind them was empty! The sentry, when

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 the militia officers had momentarily turned their backs, had vanished without a sound!

"This," said Captain Camp, "gives a different aspect to your words, mistress!" His voice ceased abruptly as he brushed past her, to disappear likewise.

The rest of the men made hasty exits, too. And Sally and Zenas were left alone in the big candlelit room.

She looked at him, then. Twas Stockton, think ye not, who did follow us somehow and took the bullets?" she inquired. "I feel sure o't, the varlet!" And she clenched her little fists.

The boy nodded. "Aye, I, too, thought o' him at once!" He looked at her soberly. "What are we to do now, Sally?"

Sally moved toward the door. "Find the bullets," she was commencing valiantly, when voices just outside made her turn swiftly away. "The other door—the kitchen one! 'Tis best we leave before they return!"

But the kitchen door, to her dismay, refused to budge when she lifted the latch. Zenas, at her heels, gave a groan. "We be too late!" he muttered.

"That other door!" Sally flew across the sanded floor of the tap room and darted around the high counter to feel, with trembling fingers, along some dark wainscoting which adorned the wall behind it.

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 "What door?" asked Zenas, following. His breath came in an involuntary gasp as the latch of the one leading outdoors rattled behind him. The next instant, however, with a low cry of triumph, Sally found a hidden spring, a narrow door, cleverly concealed in the wainscoting, swung inward, and she and Zenas stepped through the opening into a dark passage. They were just in time, for a second later Captains Camp and Littell, with their companions, reëntered the kitchen.

"Know—know ye whither this doth lead, Sally?" stammered Zenas, groping.

"Hush!" Sally's voice came to him in a stern whisper as the candlelight was abruptly blotted out by the closing of the little door. "Here!" She felt for and caught hold of his outstretched hand. "Come ye this way, Zenas!"

The boy stumbled cautiously after her. "Not so fast, prithee!" he whispered. "I—I—feel as though every step I—took would send me headlong into some dark hole!"

"That's because ye do not ktiow this passage!" returned Sally, with a stifled giggle. "I do assure ye 'tis naught but a perfectly safe, ordinary hall which takes us past the kitchen into the tavern garden—no mysterious secret passage this, for all that queer little door i' the wainscot! Ye see, I came this way one time when Mistress Todd did visit here and Mistress Banks, caught in an ancient gown by some

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 fine ladies, did fly through that door and I after her! I had forgotten it; but suddenly, as I turned away from the kitchen door, I did mind me o't! There!" Zenas felt a draught upon his hot face as Sally pulled him gently forward. "Watch thy step—see—place one foot thus!—Down! Now," she drew a long breath and released his hand, "here we be, free once more, Zenas!"

Zenas stared about him; but the darkness, without moon or stars, was still so dense that he could see nothing. "What be planning to do now, Sally?" His voice was almost plaintive. And truly, Sally and he might well feel discouraged, for setting forth on such a night in search of the stolen bullets seemed futile, indeed.

But Sally refused to be discouraged. "I am positive it was the villain Stockton," she said soberly, starting up the road toward the river. "And he would try to convey his plunder across to the enemy. Let us then to the Passaic! Only," she clutched Zenas's arm as he caught up to her, "we must be wary! Either patriots or enemy would hinder us until we secure the bullets once more, Zenas!" And she broke into a little run, tired as she was.

Zenas strode along beside her. "Ye feel the responsibility too keenly," he said, protesting. "My mother and the rest will not blame ye as bitterly as ye seem to fear, an we fail, Sally!"

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 "But the militia need the bullets," the girl told him solemnly. "I know I saw joy upon Captain Littell's face at mention o' them!"

"Think ye 'tis true the enemy be encamped across the river?" asked Zenas hoarsely.

"Aye," said Sally. And suddenly she caught him by the arm, to point ahead of her excitedly. "See!" she exclaimed beneath her breath. "Do ye not see bivouac fires?"

The boy stared into the darkness. "Nay," he was commencing, when he interrupted himself to nod excitedly. "Aye, aye, Sally, in good sooth I do! Marry, 'tis true, then! Ah, Sally, I fear for Newark and Aquackanonck and all this countryside an General Clinton hath come wi' his trained troops!"

For a little while after they had reached the river bank, the boy and the girl stood motionless, staring across the black, flowing water of the Passaic River. Vague gleams punctured the darkness; but they might have been home lights or even the candle lanterns carried by the fisher folk who lived in huts along the river edge. Sally shook a dubious head after a while.

"Nay, I feel not sure 'tis enemy lights, after all," she said.

"Mayhap ye feel not sure about the bullets having been stolen, also," answered Zenas sarcastically. He was about to continue, when Sally pinched his arm.

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 "Hist!" she whispered, glancing uneasily over her shoulder. "Dost not hear aught?"

Zenas hstened intently. "Nay," he answered, then. "Ye do imagine noises, Sally!"

But the girl, all at once, dragged him back softly into some underbrush.

"Ye must ha' Indian blood i' ye, Sally, for I hear naught," Zenas was beginning, when a little hand was clamped over his mouth and he subsided into injured silence. As he crouched there, however, he, too, caught the sound of approaching footsteps, and as Sally's hand was removed from his lips, he tensed into an attitude as motionless as the girl's. Then, as they watched, two swift, silent forms came out of the night, passed them like shadows and descended the short, sharp bank to the river edge.

Now, however, came the sound of low, rough voices, subdued cautiously. Zenas threw himself noiselessly upon his stomach and Sally unthinkingly imitated him. Together, they inched forward toward the bank until the voices below them became audible and they could hear what was said.

"Where be the boat? I see it not!"

"Zounds, I left it here, hidden i' the grass!"

"Well, it be not here now!"

"Nay, hast not looked for it! Ye be too lazy, I say!"

"Ha! not looked, say ye! And lazy, say ye! I'

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 faith, I think ye do lie an ye tell me ye hid a boat here i' the grass!"

"Have a care, sir! No one dubs me liar and lives!"

"Well, 'tis not here—ye agreed to have the boat ready, Crane! Where is it?"

"I tell ye, Captain Stockton, I did conceal it here!"

"Nay!"

"Aye!"

As the two exclamations mingled, there was a snarl, the thump of dropped burdens, and before Sally or Zenas could do more than draw excited breaths, there had commenced a vicious struggle in the darkness beneath them! At last there was the clank of steel upon steel!

"Ye will—ye cowardly knave! Draw thy hunting knife, will ye?"

"Ye skulker i' the dark—take that! And that!"

And now came a dreadful groan, the sound of someone falling, the further sound of a hurried plunge into the river—then someone swam away!

Sally, too horrified to move at first, lay where she had crept. Then, "Zenas!" she whispered, between stiff lips. "Zenas!"

"Aye, Sally?" Scarcely less horrified, his voice came to her from near by.

Sally gulped. "Think ye—think ye—the man be—be dead!" she stammered.

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 Zenas cleared his throat; but for all that his voice, when he spoke, was rough-edged. "Nay, I—I—know not!" And a little silence came upon them. Then Zenas spoke again. "Who was the man who did fall?" he whispered.

Sally shook her head, realized that Zenas could not see her in the darkness, and answered aloud: "Methinks it was Master Crane, though I could not tell."

"Why say ye that?" asked Zenas wonderingly.

"Only save that Stockton be so much a rogue!" she whispered back. She pulled herself to her knees upon the warm earth, got stiffly to her feet.

"Where be going?" inquired Zenas, springing hastily to his feet also.

"Down the bank to see what happened," Sally told him laconically, suiting action to words.

"Stay!"

"What!" Sally halted abruptly, tried to see the boy's face as he stood above her. "Why bid me stay, Zenas?" she demanded.

Zenas scrambled down to her. "Nay, this be no place for a maid," he said anxiously. "And no sight awaits ye that ye should see!"

"Tush!" said Sally roundly. "Not that I can see, dark as it be! This be war, though, Zenas—and I be no city maid, ready to swoon at sight o' blood!"

"Ye did swoon this day," began Zenas.

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 "Nay," returned Sally angrily, "that was the heat, forsooth! A kind of sunstroke! Make way, Zenas!"

"I—I—would not Sally! Ye will be sorry, I fear!"

But Sally trod past him on determined feet, and the boy followed her reluctantly to a narrow, level place beside the river. He found her kneeling beside an outstretched form.

Tis Master Crane," Sally told him in a low voice. "And he breathes, Zenas! I" She stopped, pondered. When she spoke again, her voice was troubled. "I think it our duty to inform Captain Littell and so obtain help for this man, enemy though he be, Zenas."

"Nay, Sally!" The boy whispered impetuously. "He be an enemy! Let him die!"

"Is that your mother's teachings, Zenas Williams!" Sally's voice was stern. "Enemy or no, we cannot let him die. Now," she sprang to her feet, "shall I return to the Rising Sun Tavern or will ye, Zenas?"

The boy hesitated. "I will go," he said sullenly, then.

Left alone beside that silent figure, Sally looked around her fearfully. There was the sound of the river, flowing toward Newark Bay, there were the vague gleams across the water which might mean the enemy, there were mysterious night noises in

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 trees and bushes and the long, dank grass upon the bank above her. Sally shuddered, put out her hands, frantically to stay Zenas's going. "Stay!" she wanted to say. "I will return—anything, even detention by the patriots—anything be better than staying here i' this lonely, forsaken spot wi'—that at my feet!" But no sound left her lips and Zenas, not seeing her imploring gesture, had disappeared.

It was not long, however, before he was back. "Sally!" came his excited whisper.

"Aye?" She crept toward the bank.

"Did ye hear me stumble but now? I was angry—but—but 'twas the saddlebags o'er which I stumbled!"

"The saddlebags?" amazedly. "Oh, Zenas, the saddlebags wi' the bullets?"

"Aye!" Zenas laughed exultantly. "Aye—the varlets must have dropped them over here beside the bank before they fought!"

"Hush!" cautioned Sally. She stooped and prodded the bags which lay as though flung against the sandy bank. "Aye," and now her voice, too, was triumphant, tis the bullets! Our luck be changed! And now there be no danger o' Captain Littell confining ye on suspicion an ye return to the tavern, for we have proven our story!"

"I' that case, Sally, ye go i' my place! And I will stay here wi' the Tory!" urged Zenas, with that

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 rare thoughtfulness which made him his mother's right-hand man.

"But you like not to stay here alone," began Sally doubtfully, longing to go, yet hating to be selfish.

Zenas squared his shoulders in the dark. "Go ye, Sally! And ask Captain Littell to send aid for this man. I will await ye here!" he said sturdily.

Sally, despite her knowledge of her good fortune, looked rather timidly around the tap room of the Rising Sun Tavern when, some moments later, she lifted the latch and pushed open the door. Summoning her courage, however, she advanced toward the table around which the militiamen had gathered. It was Captain Littell who, regarding her smiling face from beneath frowning, puzzled brows, spoke grimly.

"Whence came ye, young mistress? And why did ye run away?"

Sally smiled more confidently than she felt. Twould take o'erlong to tell ye, sir," she answered, in a hurried manner. "I returned to tell ye that the sentry. Master Crane, be lying, dangerously wounded, down by the river edge and—and—that the saddlebags be found!"

"Crane wounded!"

"How happened it, young maid?"

"The saddlebags found! Ye mean—the ones wi' the bullets therein?"

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 Sally shook her head. "Nay, I know not how Master Crane did receive his hurt—'twas i' the dark! The other Tory—a Captain Stockton—did fight wi' him, and he fell, wounded—then Stockton swam away!"

"Stockton escaped across the river, ye mean?" snapped Captain Littell.

"Aye, sir!"

There was a brief silence, then the soldier spoke again. "Where be these mysterious saddlebags."

Sally looked at him for a moment, resenting his brusqueness, then she nodded in the direction of the river. "They be lying on the banks o' the Passaic, sir," she told him quietly.

"Zounds!" Captain Camp started to his feet. "There be danger, then, o' the enemy finding them. Boats be not so rare, and the alarm—an the other Tory escaped—must ha' been given. We had best haste, sir!"

But Captain Littell made a negative gesture. "Wait!" he said tersely. "Are ye mad, then, to risk capture? This may be but a Tory ruse! How know ye this maid be not Tory, sent hither by those i' authority? Nay, let us not run ourselves into a trap!"

Sally started forward urgently. "Ah, delay not!" she cried. "E'en now Master Crane may be dying for lack o' aid! And, too, there be danger o' the enemy returning and finding the bullets! Oh, sir,"

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 she turned to Captain Littell, "do ye not recognize truth when ye hear it? Indeed and indeed I be no enemy spy! I have told ye I be none but Master Todd's Sally! Why, ye must know him—Samuel Todd o' the Mountain!"

"Aye, we know Samuel Todd," answered Captain Camp heavily, when Sally's broken, pleading voice had died into silence. "But I remember not his having any bond maid."

Now the girl's voice grew once more defiant. She eyed the group of stern-countenanced men facing her in the candlelight, with desperate, scornful gaze. "I have been wi' Master Todd three years—up to the very week he was taken prisoner to New York Town. Why, Parson Chapman did place me wi' the Todds! I be telling the truth, good sirs!"

"Her voice, methinks, rings true!" said one of the men, then. "Why not allow us to proceed to the river with due caution, sir? An the enemy unexpectedly attacks, we can use this girl as a shield and they will not dare fire upon one o' their own!"

"Very well—let us go!" And Captain Littell led the way from the tavern.

Once again Sally trod the way to the river, this time, however, with a hurt and angry heart. The more she saw of the patriots, she told herself bitterly, the better she liked at least one of the enemy. And a picture of Jerry Lawrence's gentle,

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 chivalrous, merry-eyed face rose before her. But Sally, in her hurt, did not give them the sympathy due these New Jersey militiamen. They were under the strain of imminent battle, with the knowledge that the morrow night might bring disaster upon their hearths and homes, for they must fight against unbelievable odds. It was almost certain that they, comparatively untrained militia troops, without the help of the Regulars, as the Continental soldiers under command of General Washington were called, would have to face the trained troops of His Majesty's army before another sun set. So it can be seen readily enough why Captain Camp and Captain Littell felt that they must use every precaution to guard against being surprised by a wily enemy.

Sally, however, saw only ruthless and needless suspicion directed against herself, and tramped along, therefore, with weariness and grief heavy upon her.

Contrary to Captain Littell's fears, they reached the river bank without misadventures and were met by Zenas. "Master Crane still lives, sir," he told Captain Camp earnestly. "And here be the bullets!" And right proudly he led the older man to the place where the saddlebags had been flung.

The rest of the men, who had been lingering cautiously upon the road, alert fingers upon pistol triggers, now advanced at a command from their captain.

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 "Take ye this man back to the tavern, and we shall see about his removal to the church later, when Dr. Burnet hath had chance to attend him," he ordered.

It was a hard task to carry the heavy, inert form up the sliding gravel which formed the river bank; but at last it was accomplished. When, finally, their slow steps had died away in the darkness, when both Captain Littell and Captain Camp had stooped to feel and prod with inquisitive fingers the precious saddlebags, the former straightened himself and turned to Sally, who had been standing silently by.

"Young mistress," he said, in a low voice, "I do indeed cry abject pardon! Some day ye will understand my rude hesitation and unkind suspicion o' ye—not now, for ye be both young and angry!—but some day! And then ye will forgive mine apparent iniquity!"

Sally had the quick, generous temperament which ever seems to accompany the flaming color of her hair. "Indeed," she said, extending her hand impulsively, "I do forgive ye now, sir! I know 'tis war!" And the next instant she blushed brightly, for in the dark her hand had been raised respectfully to the lips of as noble a gentleman as ever wore Jersey Blue.

It was a weary wait there by the river until a small detachment of militia, sent back by Captain

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 Camp, who had returned to the tavern, appeared to take charge of the saddlebags; but wait they did, for even Sally was determined that no one should get possession again of those bullets! Indeed, stumbling back to the inn, she tried to keep abreast of the men who bent their shoulders beneath the saddlebags, in order to keep her watchful gaze upon them—tried and lagged this way and that, finally bringing up, reeling from fatigue, against Captain Littell, who merely smiled as he slipped a kind, fatherly arm beneath her elbow and commenced a low-voiced, cheerful conversation that Sally but half heard. At length, between long intervals, she heard a few words.

"What," she murmured sleepily.

"I asked how I might make amends to ye?" repeated Captain Littell, smiling again.

"Oh, sir," said poor Sally, "I—I rose at dawn, and—and now it must e'en be nine o'clock! An ye indeed wish—to—make amends—think ye—ho, hum!—think ye—couldst find a place for me—to slee-eep!" And a gigantic yawn cut her words quite in two.

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ALLY! Sally!"

Sally stirred, opened her eyes, and found Zenas standing beside her, tugging excitedly at a fold of her gown. Raising herself upon a stiffened elbow, she stared around her in sleep-drugged bewilderment.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"Here i' the tap room, on the settle!" Zenas told her impatiently. "Do ye not remember, Sally? The officers did give ye their coats last night and ye lay down here and went to sleep—and I on another settle yonder! But now," the boy's voice deepened, tis dawn, Sally—and the enemy hath indeed been discovered across the river, gathering i' great numbers for an attack upon the Town!"

"Aye?" Sally sprang to the floor; but she staggered sleepily and dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. For a moment, as on that dreadful morning in Marshal Cunningham's office, months ago, everything seemed dreamlike—the gray, reluctant light stealing churlishly through the tap-room windows, the furniture standing ghostlike about,

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 Zenas, she, herself—the Todds' bond maid, here under strange circumstances—all seemed fragments of an overwrought imagination! Surely, she told herself, as she had told herself on that long-ago morning, she must waken soon!

Zenas's voice brought her back to the exigencies of the moment. "Captain Camp hath ordered our retreat, Sally," he said hurriedly. "He says we must return to the Mountain at once!"

"Oh," said Sally. She looked at him disappointedly. "Of course, I want to be safe, Zenas," she went on naïvely, "but I did indeed want to see some o' the fighting, an fighting there is going to be! Must we go at once?"

Zenas nodded. "At once!" he repeated.

"Well," Sally sighed, "well, where be the horses, then, Zenas?"

"Horses?" Zenas opened his eyes. "Why, I ne'er thought o' horses, Sally." He admitted it ruefully. "Nay, I have not seen any this morn! We shall e'en have to walk, I fear!"

A voice spoke from the doorway in displeased surprise. "What, still lingering i' this dangerous vicinity?" asked Captain Camp. "Haste ye, young folk; this be too near the river to tarry o'erlong!"

Sally approached him with a curtsey. "We have no horses. Captain Camp," she told him in a respectful little voice. "And—and—'tis a long walk back to the Mountain!"

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 "No horses?" Captain Camp frowned. "Well," he made a dismissing gesture, "ye must ne'ertheless leave the Town, mistress, before the fighting commences. Walk toward Caleb Wheeler's house—he doth have a horse or two to spare—he hath offered me the use o' them, an needful. An no one be home—indeed, 'tis doubtful, now, for his family be fled to the Mountain and he will be wi' his company—go straight around to his barn and there borrow two steeds and depart at once!"

"Ye mean Captain Wheeler, who did complete that fine new house last year on the market lane?" inquired Sally.

Nathaniel Camp nodded impatiently. "Aye, mistress. Haste ye, now!"

Sally made another curtsey; but Captain Camp, approached by a dispatch rider at that moment, was already immersed deep in the papers handed to him and did not even nod farewell.

As they stepped out into the misty dawn, the girl drew a deep breath and gazed around her. How queer that such beauty of landscape should be but the calm before the storm, for the trees were etched against their hazy background with an almost unearthly beauty, and the silver fog that blew in from the river seemed to enfold her like peace itself!

She and Zenas paused at the tavern well long enough to splash some cold water over their hands and faces and to drink deep of it. Then, glancing

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 nervously toward the Passaic, half dreading, half wishing that the mist might lift, they started off, trudging down the Broad Lane.

"Think ye 'tis really true that the enemy be so close to Newark?" asked the girl. "I cannot see how our men tell, when the fog hides all!"

"The fog came only with daybreak," Zenas told her, hurrying along. "All the hours since a little past midnight have the British and Hessian and Tories been gathering up the river beyond Newark—coming up the Hackensack River to Dow's Ferry. I heard one Master Caleb Bruen—who had just returned from a scouting expedition—make his report to Captain Camp. I was behind a wood pile when they paused before it. Master Bruen said that General Clinton had already established his headquarters on the bank o' the Passaic River at Master John Schuyler's house. Ye know the ford a little north o' that mansion? Well, 'tis thought they will attack from that point. All night long have they been marching along Schuyler's Road—the one he had built to his copper mines from the Hackensack River about twelve years ago!"

Sally, half running along beside Zenas, kept turning her eyes in the direction of the river, wishing, now, that the mist would lift. But it remained thick and obscure until they had turned

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 down the market lane and had reached the northeast corner of what is now Mulberry Street; but what was called the East Back Lane in those days. There they were greeted by the loud crowing of a cock and the first rays of the sun piercing the mist. Sally, coming to an involuntary stop, watched with suspended breath. Slowly, slowly the haze was burned off until the sun, golden-red and glorious, smiled at her over the top of Master Wheeler's fine, new house. Then she gave a sigh and turned to Zenas—to find him leaning against a tree, actually almost asleep upon his feet.

"Come, Zenas," said Sally decidedly, making for the large barn visible at the rear of Master Wheeler's property.

Zenas followed her more slowly, still with his eyes blinking. "Forsooth, 'twas poor rest upon that tavern settle!" he yawned.

"Nay, I found my settle comfortable enow!" returned Sally, glancing up at the drawn blinds of the house and thinking how deserted and forlorn it looked in the morning sunshine.

"Ye had the officers' coats to lie on," Zenas reminded her, yawning again.

"Aye, 'tis true," acknowledged Sally. A moment later she said, "Hush!" And with a sudden nervous clasp of Zenas's arm, she came to an abrupt standstill.

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text:
Author talk:Henry Stewart Reid

= sources =

marriage
Name 	Henry Stewart Reid Gender 	Male Age 	21 Birth Date 	1826 Marriage Date 	11 Dec 1847 Marriage Place 	Loodiana, Bengal, India Father 	John Fleming Martin Reid Spouse 	Mary Alexina Eckford FHL Film Number 	498985
 * India, Marriages, 1792-1948. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.

birth
Name 	Henry Stewart Reid Gender 	Male Birth Date 	22 Feb 1826 Birth Place 	Calcutta Bengal India Baptism Date 	07 Mar 1826 Baptism Age 	0 Baptism Place 	India Father 	John Fleming Martin Reid Mother 	Jane Elizabeth FHL Film Number 	498956
 * India, Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.

probate
Name 	Henry Stewart Reid, late of 120 Cromwell-road South Kensington Death Date 	5 Feb 1890 Death Place 	120 Cromwell-road South Kensington, Middlesex, England Probate Date 	25 Mar 1890 Probate Registry 	Principal Registry
 * Calendar of the Grants ...

death
Name 	Henry Stewart Reid Age 	63 Death Registration Place 	Kensington, London, United Kingdom Death Date 	Mar Q. 1890 Volume 	1a Page 	164
 * FreeBMD

title: Author talk:Henry Stewart Reid


text:
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 "What!" exclaimed Zenas, startled momentarily out of his drowsiness. "I hear naught, Sally!" He looked around him.

"There!" whispered Sally, pointngpointing [sic] toward a grape arbor which stood between their destination and them. "That red—thing moving yonder!" She clutched poor Zenas's arm with pinching and painful intensity. Zenas winced.

"Nay, I see naught!" he insisted, peering obligingly, however, in the direction Sally was staring. "Let go, Sally!" The next moment he burst into laughter, for around the end of the arbor stepped—a rooster! It had been his red comb which Sally had glimpsed moving among the grape leaves!

Sally moved forward, her head held high and her cheeks encarmined. "I see naught comical," she remarked loftily, and maintained a dignified silence until they had reached the barn, although Zenas, at her heels, went from one explosive spasm of laughter to another.

But once inside the dark, cool stable interior, both girl and boy, after going from one stall to another, stared in perplexity at each other. Not a horse was left in the barn!

"Now here be a pretty kettle o' fish!" said Zenas, in doleful tones. "Master Wheeler's family must have taken the horses when they fled. 'Twill be a long, hot walk, forsooth, back to the Mountain!"

Absently, Sally seated herself upon the upturned

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 end of a small keg standing near by, "Stay—let us think!" she murmured, yawning. "Surely there must be some other way an we only can think o't!"

Silence descended. Sally, sitting there upon her keg, chin resting upon pink palms, thought she pondered—and actually heard the clucking of hens outside the barn door, actually noticed the coolness of the morning air as it melted into the newborn sunshine, really saw the beauty of an ancient apple-tree branch, with a bird's nest swaying in the fork of it—and nodded, nodded. Coming to herself with a start, she found that she had very nearly nodded herself off from her keg. She looked around for Zenas; but no Zenas was to be found. Where had he gone?

Jumping to her feet, she ran to the door and stared in every direction. The neighborhood was deserted. Turning back, then, in puzzled anxiety, Sally's glance happened to fall upon the hayloft ladder, and a look of enlightenment spread over her face. Swiftly she bundled her skirts beneath her arm and climbed. The first object her seeking gaze rested upon, at the ladder top, was Zenas, a veritable Boy Blue, fast asleep in the hay!

It was marvelously sweet and surprisingly cool up there in the hayloft. The sun had not yet managed to dispel the coolness engendered by night by shining fervently upon the roof of hand

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 hewn cedar shingles. Later in the day, perhaps, it would be breathlessly warm beneath that sloping roof; but not yet!

Sally stepped out upon the broad, hay-strewn floor. More than half of the storage space was piled with hay—a lovely brown mountain of it. She tiptoed over to Zenas and shook him.

"Boo!" she exclaimed playfully.

But poor Zenas was too utterly weary to answer even boo! He only stirred and sighed and, having shifted his position, sank back again into slumber so deep that Sally stood looking down at him, disliking to waken him.

"Surely it cannot hurt an we linger for a brief nap—'tis so rarely lovely up here!" Her wistful glance found a hollow in the hay, as though created for a couch, and she sauntered toward it. Somehow, then, she found herself sinking down into the hay, found herself snuggling sleepily. "It—cannot—matter, an—we only—rest—a short while!" she told herself, weakly yielding, knowing well that she and Zenas should have been far on their way to the Mountain by now. Both boy and girl paid for their disobedience, however, as we shall see!

It seemed to Sally, for whom, as for Zenas, the night's rest had not been sufficiently sound to restore vigor exhausted by the previous day's exertions, that she had barely closed her eyes when

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 a great boom shook the barn walls. She scrambled to her feet and found Zenas, erect upon his, facing her horrifiedly. A rattle, probably musket shot, sounded below, then came another boom, jarring, ominous! And Zenas stifled a groan.

"What ha' we done!" he whispered. "The enemy hath come and we still be here! Why did ye not waken me?"

Sally stood in frozen terror. "Think ye—think ye 'tis the enemy?" she whispered back.

Zenas, in spite of his fright, glanced at her disgustedly. "Who else?" His whisper was disdainful. "Think ye the militia are but amusing themselves? Nay, Sally, be not overly foolish! The enemy are come, and we"—he made a precocious gesture of fatality—"are caught like rats i' a trap, for I doubt an the red-coats be prepared to show mercy!"

"Quick—let us try to escape!" Sally started impetuously toward the ladder hole.

Zenas caught her by the arm. "And be shot by stray bullets?" he asked her grimly. "Nay, 'tis safer here. Mayhap," he looked at her almost hopefully, "the enemy will pass by!"

Sally blanched as another volley of musket shot broke out, this time obviously nearer. "Zenas—I—I—cannot stay here, i' this trap!" She jerked her arm from Zenas's detaining grasp and started for the ladder hole again. But the next instant she was back, her face dead white, her eyes staring. "The

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 red-coats be below i' the barn!" she whispered below her breath. "Oh, Zenas, must we die like this?"

Strangely enough, it was the boy who took charge in this crisis. "Run to the end of the haymow—back, where ye cannot be seen, Sally—and burrow in! I will do the same at this end! Perchance we may escape! Only, go far in, for swords are long, and—and bayonets jab deep"

Ah, now how Sally wished that they had done as Captain Camp had ordered, had not weakly yielded to weariness! If only they were tramping toward the Mountain now! For even had they met the enemy, they might have hidden in the underbrush, as the old refugee had advised, and so escaped! Sally's breath came in great panting gasps—were they to be stuck like squealing pigs? She clenched her teeth to keep from nervous screaming, shrinking as steps upon the ladder could be heard, ascending. Almost as though she were staring at them, with her mind's eye she could see a file of British soldiers clamber up into the hayloft, to stand with bayonets held in position and an officer following them with drawn sword. But the words which she heard uttered were not imaginary!

"Search the haymow!" came the order in a deep, cold voice. "An rebels be concealed there, we will gie them all they might desire! Attention—bayonets!"

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 Then sounded footsteps, the rustle of hay being swept aside. Sally, burrowing frantically, discovered a prayer upon her lips! Could see, without looking at them, the gleaming bayonets jabbing in and out of the hay! She gasped, because for an instant she felt the sleeve of her gown caught and held, felt her skirt caught and held, and feeling gingerly she found two slits in the cloth! And then she knew no more. Sheer, exquisite terror had mercifully robbed her of her senses!

When she recovered her consciousness, a faraway voice was calling her by name. Sally! Sally! She gasped, began to push wildly at the imprisoning hay, reached the edge of the haymow, staggered out to air and freedom. Zenas was upon his knees, facing her, pulling in a queer, weak, uncertain manner at the hay, muttering her name. Sally! Sally! The girl, staring down at him, thought for an awful moment that he had gone daft from horror.

"Here—here I be, Zenas!" she stammered.

The boy started, glanced up at her wild-eyed, and the next instant had fallen forward into the hay, sobbing. This frightened Sally almost as much as his apparent daftness; but she stood gently by, and presently Zenas's hysterical sobbing ceased and, shamefaced, he sat erect and searched for his kerchief.

"Are—ye—not—not dead, then, Sally!" he

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 asked foolishly. Then he was laughing with the girl at his silly question, both rather hysterical, still, from their dreadful experience.

But gradually their overwrought mirth was quieted and their young faces became grave as, comparing rents where the enemy's bayonets had punctured their clothing, they each found it to be a miracle that the other still lived. Zenas, as a matter of fact, had been slightly cut upon the arm; but it was a minor injury, in view of what might have happened!

"How think ye we e'er escaped!" he exclaimed, as he bound his small wound with a kerchief Sally had pulled from her petticoat bag, to hand him.

"Only by the grace o' God, Zenas!" responded Sally. And for a moment there was brief silence as two young hearts sent up very grateful little prayers of thanksgiving, indeed. Then Sally looked at him. "Nay, let me tie the kerchief, butter fingers!" she said.

Zenas had once more sunk upon the hay, and Sally was kneeling before him, her glorious mop of curls falling forward over her face as she bent to tie the rude bandage, when a new voice spoke from the ladder hole. Both sprang to their feet to face the newcomer, terror evident in their eyes as a loathed red uniform was perceived. But the man who advanced toward them smiled and shook his

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 head as Zenas stepped protectingly in front of Sally.

"Non, non—ze cause for ze fright—eet is not needful!" he exclaimed. "I come wiz ze—peace—dans le main—in my hand, m'sieur!"

Sally peeped out from behind Zenas. "Ye—ye—mean—ye be o' the enemy, yet not one o' them, truly?" she faltered. She gestured below. "Any—any more red-coats down there?" Both she and Zenas held their breath for the stranger's answer. When the young Frenchman shook his head, Sally heaved an audible sigh of relief. "Marry, 'tis well! Now, prithee continue, sir!"

"That ees all, mademoiselle!" smiled the young man, with a graceful shrug. "My seem-pa-thee—he ees not wiz ze British! I cannot fight ze so nice Americans now zat I know ze nobility o' zeir cause!"

"Why, then, do ye not fight wi' them?" asked Sally bluntly. "The patriots, I mean!"

But the young Frenchman stood silent, and Sally and Zenas fell into conversation. Suddenly, the girl felt a touch upon her sleeve, and, turning, she found the foreigner staring wide-eyed at the bayonet rents in sleeve and gown.

"Surely—you were not in ze hay—just now!" he exclaimed, in a horror-stricken tone. "I thought ze British were—were looking for men rebels!"

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 "The word 'rebels' be sufficient!" Sally told him grimly. "Methinks they care not whether rebels be men or not! Were ye wi' the red-coats who but now searched the hay?"

"Oui, oui!" nodded the Frenchman." I returned, "he went on simply, "for I did not wish to keel the inhabitants who fought only to protect ze—homes!"

"Did ye come Hackensack way?" asked Sally.

The Frenchman shook his head. "I come by ze Elizabeth Town Point—many o' us! We do ze march to Newark, arriving at noon!"

Tis past noon now?" asked Zenas in surprise, speaking for the first time.

"Oui, oui—yes, long past!" exclaimed the other. He looked around him. "May I secrete myself in ze hay?" he asked plaintively. "I—I do not wish to fight—I onlee wish to hide until I can escape to France!"

"Why not?" asked Zenas, looking at Sally. "Poor varlet! An Master Wheeler were here, I feel sure he would bid him remain and e'en help him to return to France!"

"Of course," nodded Sally, with eager sympathy. "Tell him to stay, Zenas!"

So Zenas turned to the young man, who, bowing, had already seated himself with a sigh upon the hay and had removed the high, awkward hat which was part of the British uniform.

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 "Stay ye here," said Zenas earnestly, "and we will tell Master Wheeler, an we see him, o' thy plight, and he will help ye!"

"Mais oui—but yes, I intend to remain," answered the other, with an air of surprise. He rose politely, however, and made a deep bow as the two young people departed, Sally turning to drop him a curtsey at the ladder hole.

"Little I thought," murmured the girl, glancing back up the ladder at Zenas when she had reached the ground floor of the barn once more, "little I thought when I climbed so blithely this morn those ladder rungswhat dreadful experience awaited me!"

"Nay, let us forget about it!" said Zenas, shuddering despite the hot sunlight which slanted in at the open door.

Emerging, they stared about them. All around were evidences of enemy occupation. Windows had been wantonly broken, furniture, some of which had been carried away, had been dumped out in a heap and set fire to and was now but a smouldering pile of ashes. Walking along the market lane toward the Four Corners, Sally saw three or four still forms upon the ground, some clad in the hated red, and shiveringly averted her eyes. There was still the sound of musketry to the west and north, with an occasional boom from a cannon which must have been near the river front, and

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 when she and Zenas had reached the Broad Lane, they perceived a moving body of men marching northward, the red of their uniforms bright as a danger signal. Zenas declared he saw cattle, too, being driven away by the British!

The girl sat down wearily upon the top step of the pump stairs. "Oh, Zenas," she groaned softly, "I be that hungry, methinks I shall fade into thin air, an we do not eat soon!"

Zenas looked hopelessly about him. "I ha' pence i' my pocket; but I do doubt an any shop be open! Stay!" His face brightened with resolve. "I will go to yon house and beg for food!"

"To Master Alling's house?" Sally looked after him. "Aye, they will give ye food!"

Zenas disappeared around the rear of the house. Presently, to Sally's joy, he returned with a loaf of bread beneath his arm, like a young Benjamin Franklin, and carrying a tankard of milk in each hand.

"No one home," he announced gleefully. "So I did help myself!"

"But there comes the owner now!" Sally, who had been gazing idly up the Market Lane, suddenly told him, pointing.

"Nay, he will not care, for this be war," Zenas was beginning, when Sally gave a cry.

"A red-coat! A red-coat!" she shrieked, dancing

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 up and down and pointing toward an outhouse at the rear of Master Alling's property. The band of militia, marching down the Market Lane, broke into a run at a command from their leader. Zenas, tankards in hand, stared open-mouthed.

"Nay, ye dream, Sally," he muttered; but Sally would not be stilled.

"A red-coat! A red-coat!" she kept screaming. And when the militiamen had reached her, they, too, saw a flash of red as someone dodged behind a tree.

"Gadzooks, not one but two!" shouted the leader, John Alling. "After them, men!" And then commenced a wild chase, indeed. In and out of prim, fenced-in yards, doubling, redoubling from tree to tree, the hunted red-coats ran. Sally, mad with excitement, followed, and thought she saw Stockton's face glaring at her as he ran. Now, doubly determined the red-coats should not escape, she pursued the militia, coming to a panting stop outside the churchyard whither the hunted men had run. Savage joy engulfed her when she saw the patriots closing in upon the panting, desperate red-coats, who had taken refuge behind a gravestone.

"Caught i' a trap!" she exulted. "Caught i' a trap as bad as our haymow!"

At last, as was inevitable, the enemy were se-

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 cured! And when this was done, Sally joined in the small, feeble cheer which came from some wounded who had appeared in the church door, attracted by the commotion outside their windows.

But suddenly the girl's hands dropped to her sides and she stared. For the first red-coat who was being hustled toward her roughly by two militiamen was a stranger and the second, stumbling along with his hands tied behind him, his face streaked with dirt and blood from a blow, was Jerry Lawrence! He looked up and recognized her. The grim look of accusation upon his thin young face was succeeded by a look so unbelieving, so sorrowful, that Sally shrank back.

"Ah, Sally, Sally!" he groaned, as he was unceremoniously shoved past her, "was it indeed ye who betrayed us?"

That was all. The little moment was gone. Tramp, tramp went the marching feet, and Sally, the tears rolling unnoticed down her cheeks, was left staring after that haggard figure, staggering along with its hands tied behind its back.

"Well," said Zenas's voice behind the girl, "that be two less o' the varlets, forsooth! 'Tis good ye did perceive them, Sally! Here, let us sit down here on the church steps and eat!"

Sally shook her head. "Nay," she said in a low voice, "I—I—be not hungry!"

"But ye said," began Zenas in an amazed voice.

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 Sally whirled upon him angrily. "I said I was not hungry! Eat an ye will—I cannot!" And to Zenas's stupefied surprise, she turned and followed, at a distance, the militamenmilitiamen [sic] and their prisoners toward the town jail.

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UT Zenas soon recovered from his surprise. Hastily gulping down the contents of one tankard of milk, he placed the other where it would not be spilled, and a loaf of bread still beneath his arm, ran after Sally. He caught up to the silently weeping girl before the jail.

"Now, Sally, for love o' heaven, tell me what ails ye?" he demanded in an amazed voice, planting himself squarely in front of her so that she had to come to a standstill.

Sally shook her head. "Ye—ye would not—not understand!"

Zenas made an impatient sound. "Stop weeping! How know ye I wouldn't understand unless ye do tell me!" he exclaimed. "Come—was one o' the red-coats a Tory friend o' thine!"

Sally nodded speechlessly.

"And ye be sorry ye did betray him—be that it?" went on the boy shrewdly.

Again Sally nodded. A little silence lay between them.

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 "Ye remember ye told me 'twas not Uzal Ball's lack o' graciousness, but mine own hunger and the heat was the matter wi' me yesterday noon?" said Zenas at last, his absent gaze fixed upon a point over Sally's head.

She looked at him quickly, then she began to blush. Zenas brought a keen gaze to bear upon her lowered eyelids and crimsoned cheeks and smiled to himself as Sally turned slowly away and commenced to retrace her steps toward the church.

"But that was diff-different," sniffed Sally, "for ye had no real trouble to bear while I—while I" Her voice faded as she paused again, overcome.

Zenas stood waiting patiently until the girl dried her tears again. "Was the red-coat one o' our neighbors?" he asked sympathetically.

"Nay—he was no Tory!" answered Sally faintly. "He was that British lad whom ye mind Squire Todd did shoot last May, the one who did escape from Uzal the day o' the enemy raid on Newark, when Jerry had recovered and Uzal was fetching him to Town to lodge him in the jail, here."

"Aye, I remember," Zenas nodded. "Well, feel not thus badly—'tis the fortunes o' war, and ye did not know 'twas him!" he added consolingly.

"He knows not that!" To Zenas's exasperation—for he was tired and hungry, too—a fresh burst of

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 tears o'ertook Sally. "He doth think I betrayed him!"

"How can he?" Zenas really tried hard to be patient. "Nay, Sally, be not foolish—the lad will work out matters i' his own mind presently and acquit ye o' treachery to him! Now—sit ye down and drink this milk," he pushed her gently down upon the church step, which they had reached by this time. "And eat some o' this bread, and I wager ye will feel ten times better!" And he handed her a hunk of the bread which he had broken.

Presently, Sally set down the tankard she had emptied and shook her head at the second piece of bread Zenas was holding out to her. "Nay, I have had enow, thank ye, Zenas!" she said gratefully. She rose and made smooth her curls and shook out the little apron she wore. "I do feel much better," she added.

"I knew ye would," Zenas was commencing, when Sally caught hold of his arm.

"See, there be Master Alling now, wi' his men!" she exclaimed, pointing down the lane. The detachment of militia had emerged from the jail, obviously having deposited the prisoners within, and were marching toward the two young people. "Zenas," said Sally hurriedly, "I have but now thought—mayhap Master Alling hath horses!"

"Aye!" exclaimed Zenas eagerly. "Would ye," he hesitated, "would ye dare to ask him for 'em?"

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 "Why not?" responded Sally. She waited beside the road until the little band of militia had reached her, then she walked quickly out to the center of the lane, and Major Alling halted his men.

"Aye, young mistress?" he asked kindly. "Wouldst speak to me?"

Sally nodded. "Good sir," she said, in a low voice, "this lad and I be from the Newark Mountain. We brought some bullets to Town yesterday"

"Aye, Captain Camp did so inform me," interrupted John Alling. He regarded her with interest. "So ye were the brave lad and lass who did come wi' those much-needed bullets!" His kind look included Zenas, who had approached and who now flushed and shuffled his feet embarrassedly at such direct praise. "What can I do for ye?" The young man turned back to Sally.

"We have no horses with which to return to the Mountain—our horses, as ye know, mayhap, also—were stolen last night. Captain Camp sent us down to Master Wheeler's house this morn, there to borrow horses, and there were none left i' his stable—doubtless his family took them when they fled—and that reminds me"

Major Alling looked at Sally with curiosity. "Aye?" he prompted.

Sally turned and looked thoughtfully at Zenas instead of replying. "Shall I inform him about—you know?" she asked meaningly.

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 Zenas nodded. "Aye—for he will, no doubt, see Master Wheeler before we do!"

Sally turned back to John Alling. "There be a deserter from the British Army hidden i' Master Wheeler's barn, sir," she said, dropping her voice that the other militiamen might not hear. "Will ye so inform Master Wheeler an ye do see him? This man be a Frenchman, sir, who said he could not fight against the patriots when he found how noble was their cause. So he hid, that he might escape to France."

Major Alling's frank face, which had darkened at the words "deserter from the British Army," now cleared in approval.

"Aye," he said heartily, "I will so inform Master Wheeler o' his unexpected guest! And now," he looked at Sally questioningly, "ye do want to borrow some horses in order to reach the Mountain? Did I understand ye aright?"

"Aye, sir, an it please ye!"

Major Alling pondered for a moment. "I think I can accommodate ye," he announced, then. "I have, hidden, some horses that my aged grandfather might escape, an he chose, i' case o' enemy attack this day. But the old gentleman staunchly refused to leave and worried about the horses being left i' danger here. So 'twould help us both an ye were to ride them away to the Mountain and there keep them until I come for them." He smiled at the

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 look of frank relief upon the young faces before him and turned to one of his men. "Ezra," he ordered, "do ye go wi' this lad and show him where our horses be hid, then report to me at the Rising Sun Tavern. Company, attention! Forward, march!"

The young man whom Major Alling had detailed to help them led Zenas and Sally toward the Alling homestead as the company of militia marched on up the Broad Lane. His eyes, which were twinkling blue ones, twinkled still more as he glanced down at Zenas, for the boy was stalking solemnly along, carrying the tankards stiffly before him.

"What ha' ye there?" asked the militiaman good-naturedly.

Zenas flushed and glanced apoealingly at Sally, who came to his rescue.

"They be tankards—don't drop 'em, Zenas—they be tankards, sir, belonging to Master Alling," she explained gravely. "Zenas—we—er—borrowed them wi' some milk and some bread, which he—we—found i' Master Alling's kitchen!"

To their surprise and embarrassment, the young man Ezra burst into laughter. "Ecod," he cried, when he could speak, "this be a rare joke on the old grandsire, who doth pride himself upon both his keen hearing and his caution in barring the house during enemy raid! So ye did walk straightway in through unbarred door, eh! The old gentleman was doubtless upstairs at some window on eager

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 watch! Beshrew me, won't he be chagrined when I tell him, for he hath ever declared he be as alert as any!"

"Nay, do not tell him!" begged Sally. Twill only hurt his pride and do no good! Mayhap he did leave the door ope for Master Alling—which only shows his love for his grandson and needs no rebuking! Besides," she blushed, "it did—did help us out mightily, for—for we were nigh to starvation, it did seem to us!"

So the young man promised, and an old gentleman was saved from hurt.

As Sally waited before the house, while Zenas and Ezra went to secure the horses, she could plainly hear sounds of battle coming from the riverfront and from the ravines north of the village. There was a queer contrast in this distant din and noise of strife and the peace which brooded over this part of the little hamlet, for the Broad Lane at this point was deserted, as were sundry cross lanes, while those still forms, at which Sally had previously shuddered, had been carried away. The air of peace was further enhanced by the sight of Major Alling's aged grandfather sitting at his upper window, dreaming in the afternoon sunshine. And yet the devastation wrought by the British belied this false calm and security, and Sally, hearing the distant boom of cannon, knew that the brave New Jersey militia were swarming down

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 from the hills and marching in from the backwoods, still fighting desperately to preserve the integrity of their homes.

But now there were voices approaching, and Sally saw Zenas and Ezra coming toward her, leading two handsome horses.

Tis indeed a happy thought—your taking the horses," said the latter, helping Sally to mount, "for there be no knowing an the enemy will return or not! Though 'tis extremely doubtful—for they are making for the ford near Master Schuyler's house on the opposite bank o' the Passaic," he added.

"Didst see the cattle the British were driving?" asked Sally eagerly.

"The British took not only about four hundred head o' cattle, including milch cows, but upward o' four hundred head o' sheep, as well as some horses," the young man told her ruefully. "They must have raided well the countryside as they came from Elizabeth Town!"

"Is't true, indeed!" exclaimed Sally, in a distressed tone. "Oh, the poor patriot farmers. I fear there be a most dreadful winter ahead o' them!"

"Aye!" Ezra shook his head mournfully. "Well, fare ye well! A safe journey home to ye!" And doffing his tri-cornered hat in good-humored valedictory, the young militiaman started off up the Broad Lane after his company.

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