might walk around, promising to be as obedient to our orders
as was Horry Sims; but I knew him too well to put any trust in his
words.

Now and then we released his feet, and again gave him free use of one
arm at a time; in other words, we did all we might to relieve the pain
of his position without running too much risk on our part.

On that day when the French and the American troops attacked the
redoubts on either side the village, I thought we had come to our last
hour on earth, so thickly did the shots from the American redoubt
directly in front of the lines which were sent to cover the assault I
have already described, strike roundabout old Mary's cabin. It seemed
certain we must be sent into the Beyond by those who would lend us
every aid within their power.

It was when a solid shot struck the corner of the cabin near to the
ridge-pole, just above where Abel Hunt lay, and plowed its way through
the solid logs, tearing them aside as a child might shatter a lot of
jackstraws, that I believed we were soon to meet our death. Hunt must
have been of the same opinion, for he begged like a cur, when Pierre and
I went up shortly afterward, for us to keep the gag from his mouth,
declaring that we were striving to compass his death by leaving him in
such a place.

But for Pierre Laurens I believe we would have abandoned the prisoners,
and, taking Uncle Rasmus with us, fled down to the bank of the river
immediately in the rear of the captured redoubt, where several of the
villagers were gathered in abject terror, thinking only to shield
themselves from the iron hail which came into and across the encampment
with the fury of a summer tempest.

It was not possible for us to go an hundred yards in either direction
from the cabin without coming upon wounded or dead, and so accustomed
did we become within a very short time to such horrible scenes that they
ceased to terrify us, save when, as happened more than once, a soldier
was shot down within a stone's throw of our hiding place. Even then it
was to us nothing so very terrible, save that it served to point out the
peril in which we were placed.

We had long since ceased to depend upon the citizens of York for food;
but went boldly up to the quartermaster's department when rations were
being served, and only once were we turned away empty-handed.

I would not have it understood that during the siege we were living on
the fat of the land; we had sufficient with which t