n? Have your legs grown weary with walking
three or four miles?"

"The town of York will remain where it is yet many a day, and I dare
venture to say my Lord Cornwallis will not take his departure suddenly,
therefore shall we have plenty of time in which to look at the British
encampment," Pierre replied, retracing his steps as if he had no care
whether we followed.

"But why go back?" I cried impatiently. "Of what avail for us to follow
that squad, who are most likely out foraging?"

"I have seen soldiers nearabout New Orleans, therefore do I know that
when foragers go out they take with them huge wagons to bring back such
as may be found. Those who have just passed are empty-handed, save for
muskets, and never one of them carried his full complement of
accoutrements."

"Well, suppose he doesn't?" Saul asked sulkily, but yet following little
Frenchie nevertheless, for there was something about the lad which
caused you to do that which pleased him whether it was to your liking or
not.

"Then it must be they are out on some special duty," Pierre continued,
"and I am of the mind that we shall find more amusement in watching
them, than if we follow on the heels of your Tory friend who seems also
to count on visiting York Town."

Whether Pierre had any suspicions of what might be afoot, I cannot say;
but certain it is he pressed forward, striving to accommodate his pace
with that of the soldiers, so that he might not come directly on their
heels, and Saul and I, inwardly angry with ourselves for thus copying
the movements of the little lad from New Orleans, kept well alongside
him till we had covered a distance of mayhap a mile, when my cousin
suddenly halted, saying almost angrily:

"We are showing ourselves simples in thus turning back simply because a
squad of British soldiers have gone ahead!"

"Yet those same gentlemen who wear red coats are marching in the
direction of the Hamilton plantation," little Frenchie said with another
shrug of his shoulders and a wave of his hands, as if to intimate that
there was very much more which he might say, and I, understanding
somewhat of the gesture, cried out impatiently:

"Why do you say that? What have they to do on the Hamilton plantation?"

"It is that which I would learn," Pierre replied. "It is what I believe
it would be better for us to see than if we wandered through the British
encampment at York Town."

Until that instant I had never fancied my father's pro