"How did you get rid of him?" I asked. "Why might he not suspect
something when you broke away instead of continuing on so far as his
home, which lay directly in your path, if you were heading for the
Hamilton plantation?"

"I made out that I knew of a short way through the woods, which would
take me directly out of his path, and when we were come to that trail
which leads off toward the York river I left him, although he was
mightily surprised at hearing that such a course would bring me to your
home more directly than if I continued on the road."

"Where did you pick him up?" Saul asked impatiently. "Why did you waste
time on the scoundrel? It would seem to me that after all he has done
it was your business to flog, rather than make friends with him."

By this time Pierre had so far recovered his breath that it was possible
for him to speak distinctly, and without undue effort. Rising to his
feet and shrugging his shoulders as he spread his hands palm outward, he
said in his mild voice, and with that peculiar accent:

"To have done so, my friend, would have been to show myself an enemy to
you. While I was striving to make my way inside the British lines,
pretending that I was simply bent on curiosity, he came up, seemingly
having a right of way everywhere within the encampment, and when he
greeted me civilly, evidently wondering why I was there alone, I could
do no less than treat him as I would have done yesterday, in the hope
that something might drop from his lips which would aid me in my
search."

"And did it?" I asked eagerly, for now I began to understand that by
bearing himself friendly toward Horry Sims, Pierre had succeeded where
otherwise the chances were he must have failed.

"Indeed it did," the lad said in a tone of triumph. "It was far better
than if I had indulged in a game of fisticuffs with him, because his
red-coated friends would speedily have come to his relief."

"What did you learn?" Saul demanded fiercely.

"Where your mare and Fitzroy's Silver Heels are stabled," was the quiet
reply, whereupon I sprang up as if within my body was a stout steel
spring which had lately been released.

"You learned where they were stabled?" I cried excitedly.

"Ay, that I did," Pierre replied with a shrug of the shoulders, "and
without any great labor, for Horry Sims led me at once, and meeting with
no interference from the soldiers, to where all the horses which had
been taken from the Hamilton planta