es on me.

"Come, gentlemen," said Sir Peter, "the horses are here. Is not that
fine chestnut your mount, Captain Butler? You will ride with us, will
you not? Where is your baggage? At Flocks? I shall send for it--no,
sir, I take no excuse. While you are in New York you shall be my guest,
Captain Butler."

And so, Sir Peter naming Butler to O'Neil and Harkness, and salutes
being decently exchanged, we mounted and cantered off along Great
George Street, Horrock on his hunter bringing up the rear.

And at every stride of my horse a new misgiving, a deeper distrust of
this man Butler stirred in my troubled heart.

CHAPTER IV

SUNSET AND DARK

It was six o'clock in the early evening, the sun still shining, and in
the air a sea-balm most delicious. Sir Peter and Captain Butler had
gone to see Sir Henry, Butler desiring to be presented by so grand a
personage as Sir Peter, I think, through mere vanity; for his own rank
and title and his pressing mission should have been sufficient
credentials. Sir Henry Clinton was not too difficult of approach.

Meanwhile I, finding neither Lady Coleville nor the Hon. Elsin Grey at
home, had retired to my chambers to write to Colonel Willett concerning
Butler's violent designs on the frontier. When I finished I made a
sealed packet of all papers accumulated, and, seizing hat, snuff-box,
and walking-stick, went out into Wall Street, through the dismal
arcades of the City Hall, and down to Hanover Square. Opposite Mr.
Goelet's Sign of the Golden Key, and next door to Mr. Minshall's
fashionable Looking-Glass Store, was the Silver Box, the shop of Ennis
the Tobacconist, a Boston man in our pay; and it was here that for four
years I was accustomed to bring the dangerous despatches that should go
north to his Excellency or to Colonel Willett, passed along from
partizan to partizan and from agent to agent, though who these secret
helpers along the route might be I never knew, only that Ennis charged
himself with what despatches I brought, and a week or more later they
were at Dobbs Ferry, West Point, or in Albany. John Ennis was there
when I entered; he bowed his dour and angular New England bow, served a
customer with snuff, bowed him to the door, then returned grinning to
me, rubbing his long, lean, dangerous hands upon his apron--hands to
throttle a Tryon County wolf!

"Butler's in town," he said harshly, through his beak of a nose. "I
guess there's blood to be smelled somewher