at Stake. Death and Devastation
are the certain Consequences of Delay. Every Moment is
infinitely precious; an Hour lost may deluge your Country in
Blood, and entail perpetual Slavery upon the few of your
Posterity who may survive the Carnage. We beg and entreat
you, as you will answer it to your Country, to your own
Conscience, and, above all, as you will answer to God
himself, that you will hasten and encourage, by all possible
Means, the Enlistment of Men to form the Army, and send them
forward to Headquarters at Cambridge, with that expedition
which the vast Importance and instant Urgency of the affair
demands.

"JOSEPH WARREN, President."

[Illustration: THE ENCAMPMENT AT CAMBRIDGE.]

I would I might set down all I heard and saw during that day in
Cambridge; but it cannot be if I am to tell the story of what we Minute
Boys succeeded in doing during a certain portion of the year of Grace
1775.

It is enough to say that before nightfall I had received all the
instructions and advice that could be given, and was ready to make an
attempt at getting into town once more, mourning meanwhile because of
having left the skiff so far away that a long tramp would be necessary
in order to come at her.

Even amid his duties, and they were many, Doctor Warren had time to
think of me and my well-being, for when, near to sunset, I was standing
with my father in front of the building occupied by the Committee of
Safety, already taking leave of him, the doctor came up smiling as if
seeing in me an old and valued friend, and said:

"I am not minded, lad, that you should tramp from here to the ferry in
order to regain your skiff. Leave her where she is, and she may serve
you a good turn at another time. Hiram Griffin has made ready a boat on
the river, and you can embark in her, if so be it is prudent to land on
either shore of the town."

"I will take the chance, sir, at one place or another," I said, feeling
wondrously relieved at thus being spared the many miles of travel, and
for a moment thinking it might be the doctor's purpose to send Hiram
with me.

After I found the boat which had been made ready, I could not repress an
exclamation of disappointment at seeing that she was a large craft, far
too heavy to be handled by a single person.

"I have the long tramp before me even now," I said in a tone of dismay
to my father, who