break in on the vigorous
melody which kept his lips puckered.

She saw he was carrying something on his shoulder. A second glance
showed that it was one of the heavy rifles used by the pioneers a
hundred years ago. The sight--taken with what Omas had just said--filled
her heart with forebodings.

She waited until the lad came up. He kissed her affectionately, and then
in the offhand manner of a big boy, let the butt of the gun drop on
the ground, leaned the top away from him, and glancing from it to his
mother, asked--"What do you think of it?"

"It seems to be a good gun. Whose is it?"

"Mine," was the proud response. "Colonel Butler ordered that it be given
to me, and I'm to use it, too, mother."

"For what purpose?"

"The other Colonel Butler--you know he is a cousin to ours--has got a
whole lot of Tories" (who, you know, were Americans fighting against
their countrymen) "and Indians, and they're coming down to wipe out
Wyoming; but I guess they will find it a harder job than they think."

And to show his contempt for the danger, the muscular lad lifted his
weighty weapon to a level, and pretended to sight it at a tree.

"I wish that was a Tory or one of those Six Nation Indians--wouldn't I
drop him!"

The mother could not share the buoyancy of her son. She stepped outside,
so as to be beyond the hearing of the little ones.

"Omas has been here; that is his little girl that you hear laughing
with Alice. He has told me the same as you--the Tories and Indians are
coming, and he wants us to flee with him."

"What does he mean by that?" asked the half indignant boy.

"He says they will put us all to death, and if we do not go with him, we
will be killed too."

The handsome face of Benjamin Ripley took on an expression of scorn, and
as he straightened up, he seemed to become several inches taller.

"He forgets that I am with you! Omas is very kind; but he and his Tory
friends had better look out for themselves. Why, with the men at the
fort, Colonel Butler will have several hundred."

"But they are mostly old men and boys."

"Well," said the high spirited lad, with a twinkle of his fine hazel
eyes, "add up a lot of old men and boys, and the average is the same
number of middle aged men, isn't it? Don't you worry, mother--things are
all right. If Omas comes back, give him our thanks, and tell him we are
not going to sneak off when we are needed at home."

It was hard to resist the contagion of Ben's ho