our wits entirely?" Pierre whispered angrily, and
forgetting to shrug his shoulders. "Of what avail for you to demand your
Silver Heels when the king's officers would have her for their own? Do
you count on being carried to the guard-house at York Town as a
malcontent, or even worse, a dangerous rebel?"

"I care not where they carry me, so I take Silver Heels from yon brute
that is bestride her!"

"And how will you take her?" little Frenchie whispered, this time
shrugging his shoulders and waving his hands, I having so far obeyed him
as to be standing by his side beneath the shelter of leaves. "Do you
fancy that after Colonel Simcoe's men have seized a likely lot of
horse-flesh, a lad such as you may wrest from them their spoils?"

"But Silver Heels is my own, my very own! No one, not even the king
himself, has the right to take her!" I cried in my folly.

"But some one has taken her, and he is stronger than you, my friend
Fitz," Pierre said, stroking the sleeve of my coat as he would the back
of an angry cat. "It is no less than Colonel Simcoe of the Queen's
Rangers, a trusted officer of my Lord Cornwallis, who thus gathers in
mounts for his men that they may the better punish the rebels of
Virginia, among whom may be counted your father, and even you, lad,
since you are pleased to call yourself a Minute Boy. Will you not listen
to reason?" little Frenchie continued in a coaxing tone. "Did you not
see Horry Sims talking with these very men, and pointing in the
direction of the Hamilton plantation? Do you not know he was telling
them that a rank rebel owned the place--one whose stables were filled
with the best horse-flesh in Virginia? Before those men took your Silver
Heels they knew right well to what plantation she belonged, and even
though you had had by your side a dozen neighbors and friends, the
result would have been the same. Now what would it avail that you
should pour out your unreasoning wrath? Simply to the end that they
might abuse, or, perhaps, imprison?"

Even before Pierre had ceased speaking did I come to understand how
useless it would be for me to make any attempt at taking poor little
Silver Heels from those who had stolen her, and I crouched yet further
among the foliage as the horsemen approached, for there had come into my
mind on the instant a certain thought, call it plan if you will, the
carrying out of which depended upon holding myself free.

Then, like a great wave upon the seashore,