hen Hiram aroused me to a sense of life and responsibility.

"What has happened?" I cried stupidly, staggering to my feet when he had
shaken me into consciousness, and he replied grimly, like one who has a
deep sore in his heart and strives to hide it by showing anger:

"Much has happened as you will understand when slumber has been driven
from your eyelids. Now is not the time for you to remain idle, after
having had eight hours of sleep. Where are your Minute Boys?"

"Here, if I mistake not," I answered, not yet fully realizing all that
had taken place since we marched out from Cambridge under the leadership
of Colonel Prescott.

"I have been astir since sunrise, and find but seven, counting you and I
as two. It seems certain many of the lads have given up their lives; but
I have learned from what seems good evidence that Silas Brownrigg was
taken prisoner by the lobster backs."

"How do you know that?" I cried, my voice sounding shrill because of the
fear which came upon me concerning the other lads.

"I have talked with those who saw him far in the rear before we were
come to Charlestown Neck, and there is one here who claims that he saw a
grenadier seize the lad just before we were arrived within range of the
_Glasgow's_ fire."

"What of Archie and Harvey?" I cried, instantly full of apprehension.

"Over yonder, not twenty paces away," and Hiram pointed across the field
where were two hundred or more men fallen into the same sleep of
exhaustion from which I had just awakened.

"Let's go to them," I said suiting the action to the words, and a few
moments later the two lads, with slumber yet hanging heavily on their
eyelids, were sitting bolt upright listening to me as I repeated Hiram's
words.

"It will be a ticklish job to make our way into Boston town now while
the enemy is so keenly on the alert," Archie said, as if there was no
question in his mind but that we would set off without delay to do
whatsoever we might to help our unfortunate comrade.

"Do you so much as fancy we might get into the town? Or, having
smuggled our way through the lines, that we could remain there an hour
without being detected?" I cried, amazed because my comrade had
seemingly suggested such a perilous adventure.

"It matters little whether we can succeed or not, the attempt must be
made," Archie said promptly, and I understood there was in his mind the
thought that now had come the time when he might be able to show his
wi