om, suddenly thinking of something.

"Well, what is it, Tom?"

"Suppose you guess wrong as to the distance travelled each day?"

"Well, suppose I do; I can't miss it very far."

"No, but it gives you a wrong starting-point for the next day, and two
or three mistakes would throw you clear out."

"Yes, but I make corrections constantly. You see, I have changed the
place of last night's camp a little on the map."

"How do you make corrections?"

"By the creeks and rivers. Here, for instance, is a creek that we
ought to cross about ten miles ahead. If we come to it short of that,
or if it proves to be further off, I shall know that I have got
to-night's camp placed wrong on the map. I shall then correct my
estimate. When we come to the next creek I shall be able to make my
guess still more certain, and by the time we get to Pensacola I shall
have the whole march marked pretty nearly right on the map."

"I'd give a purty price for that there head o' your'n, Sam," said Sid
Russell.

"It isn't for sale, Sid, and besides it will be a good deal cheaper to
use the one you have, taking care to make it as good as anybody's. Now
let me explain to all of you why we are going to Pensacola," and with
that Sam entered into the plans which we know all about already, and
which need not be repeated here. When he had finished the boys plied
him with questions, which he answered as well as he could. Jake
Elliott said nothing for a time, but after a while he ventured to
ask:--

"Don't they hang fellows they ketch in that sort o' business?"

"They hang spies," replied Sam, "but they can scarcely hold us to be
spies, especially as we shall be in the territory of a friendly
neutral nation, where there cannot properly be a British camp at all."

"Well, but mayn't they do it anyhow, just as they are a campin' there,
anyhow?"

"Of course they may, but I do not think it likely. In the first place
we mustn't let them suspect us, and in the second, we must make use of
what law there is if we should be arrested."

"Well, but if it all failed, what then?" asked Jake.

"Oh, shut up Jake," cried Billy Bowlegs. "You're afeard, that's what's
the matter with you."

"Well," replied Sam "that is simply a risk that we have to run, like
any other risk in war. I told you all in advance that the expedition
was a hazardous one."

"Of course you did, an' what's more you didn't want Jake Elliott to
come either," said Billy Bowlegs.

"Go into y