onet you shall teach
me some of these 'mere tricks' of yours."

I promised, glancing back toward the dust-veiled barrier in the
distance.

"Dick, you passed this way an hour ago; was that breastwork in the road
then?"

"Not a stick of it."

"Then we may dare say our volunteer captain fights unwillingly."

"How so?" he demanded, being much too straightforward himself to suspect
duplicity in others.

"'Tis plain enough. This was a trap, meant to stop or delay us, and I'll
wager high it was the baronet who set and baited it. It would please him
well to be able to say what our failure to come would give him warrant
for. Let us gallop a bit, lest we be late and so play into his hand."

Jennifer smiled grimly and gave his horse the rein. "I think you'd
charge the Fall of Man to him if that would give you better leave to
kill him. I'd hate to own you for my enemy, John Ireton."

For all our swift speeding we were yet a little late at the rendezvous
under the tall oaks. When we came on the ground the baronet was walking
up and down arm in arm with his second, a broad-shouldered young Briton,
fair of skin and ruddy of face.

If Falconnet had set the Tory trap for us he veiled his disappointment
at its failure. His face, dark and inscrutable as it always was, was
made more sinister by the plasters knitting up his broken cheek, but I
was right glad to make sure that my blow had spared his eyes. Richly as
he deserved his fate, I thought it would be ill to think on afterward
that I had had him at a disadvantage of my own making.

There was little time wasted in the preliminaries. When Falconnet saw us
he dropped his second's arm and began to make ready. I gave my sword to
Jennifer, and the seconds went apart together. There was some measuring
and balancing of weapons, and then Richard came back.

"The baronet's sword is a good inch longer than yours in the blade, and
is somewhat heavier. Tybee has brought a pair of French short-swords
which he offers. Will you change your terms?"

"No; I am content to fight with my own weapon."

Jennifer nodded. "So I told him." And then: "There was no surgeon to be
had in town, Dr. Carew having gone with the Minute Men to join Mr.
Rutherford. Tybee says 'tis scarce in accordance with the later rulings
to fight without one."

"To the devil with their hairsplittings!" said I. "Let us have done with
them and be at it."

Falconnet was removing his coat, and I stripped mine. The secon