f Minute Boys, and
believing you would do so, I fancied it might pleasure you to know that
there was come so soon an opportunity to aid the Cause. I counted on
seeing two, however," he added as if in disappointment.

In the fewest possible words I told him of our misadventure the night
previous, and asked if he believed it might be possible for us boys to
do aught toward effecting the poor lad's release.

"I question if an equal number of men could do anything," the doctor
replied, speaking as if he was sorrowful because of not being able to
hold out hope. "His father is known as a Son of Liberty, and it will
most like be charged against him that he was attempting to carry
information to us rebels here in Cambridge, therefore he will be guarded
more closely than if he had been guilty of some grievous crime."

I strove unsuccessfully to choke back the sob which finally escaped my
lips, and then, thinking that if I was to have any opportunity to serve
the Cause it ill became me to play the part of a baby, asked with as
much firmness as I could muster:

"What work have you for us Minute Boys to do, sir?"

"The Committee of Safety believes that you lads can be of great service
in bringing to us news from the town, and it was to discuss with you how
best one of your company might make his way to us here, when you had
learned that which it would advantage us to know."

"I do not believe it would be possible to lay out any one route by which
we would be able come at all times." I made bold to reply. "On certain
nights we might perchance set off from Fox hill, and come across without
difficulty. Again we could, perhaps, make Barton's point our place of
departure. In fact it would depend upon where the red-coats had been
stationed, and what they were about."

"Yes, yes, lad, I understand that full well. What we had in mind was to
settle how you might hide skiffs at these various places in order to
take sudden advantage of any favorable opportunity. Your father is in
camp; have speech with him, and come back to me here an hour later."

If Hiram Griffin had been standing near the door listening to our
conversation he could not have entered the room at a better moment, for
the doctor had but just spoken those words which were the same as token
of my dismissal, when he came in, and I asked if he could tell me where
my father might be found.

It seems no more than right I should set down here the fact that Hiram
Griffin, du