iberty Hall,--and there were
now very many reputable citizens present,--was most intense, and
continued to increase each instant.

Word was brought of collisions between soldiers and citizens at
different points, and although very much of the information was
afterwards ascertained to be untrue, no one questioned it at the moment.

It seemed apparent to all that the time had arrived when the question
as to whether the soldiery should be allowed to occupy Boston must be
settled by force of arms, despite the odds which must necessarily be
against the inhabitants in such an encounter.

Before sunset on this day the situation seemed to have changed
greatly, for the brawlers of Hardy Baker's class were now in the
minority, and it was sober, well-meaning citizens who occupied the
space under the Liberty Tree.

Rumours came thick and fast. Some claimed that the Sons of Liberty, as
an association, had that afternoon demanded of Governor Hutchinson
that the troops be withdrawn; others declared the demand had been made
and positively rejected, while the more timid insisted that the
soldiers were making ready to awe the citizens by such a display of
power, regardless as to whether bloodshed might ensue, and that within
the next twenty-four hours there would be found no one bold enough to
demand that they be sent away.

Amos and Jim, believing themselves in good company so long as they
remained with Samuel Gray, kept close at his heels, and he was not
loth to have them, for, like many another in the city of Boston on
this night, he was firmly convinced that the strength of boys, as well
as men, would be necessary before morning to preserve the slight
semblance of freedom which was left to the Colonies.

John Gray's fears that there would be trouble in the vicinity of the
rope-walk had been proven by this time to be groundless, for soldiers
as well as citizens had, as if by common impulse, avoided the scene of
the first serious outbreak, and at seven o'clock in the evening, when
the city was more nearly in a state of repose than it had been since
the alarm-bells summoned the inhabitants, Samuel Gray proposed to his
brother and Amos that they go to the factory.

[Illustration]

"I promised father I would look around there now and then, and if you
boys are not counting on going home to supper, I can give you
something in the way of a lunch from the store of provisions I carried
there this morning."

"We are certainly not go