athing, I asked Darius where he proposed to go.

"That's what I haven't rightly made up my mind on," the old man said
thoughtfully. "It stands to reason that the enemy will, sooner or
later, try to make as many prisoners as possible, an' I'm allowin'
that those fellows ahead are bound to have a hot time of it before
they're many hours older. If we could only get down the river!"

"But we can't, an' that much is certain," Jerry said petulantly.

"Perhaps you've got another scheme in your head, since the oyster
business turned out so well," and it is possible that I spoke
sharply, realizing with bitterness just then that but for my
partner's proposition to sell fish to the fleet I might never have
discovered I owed my country a duty, and, consequently, would not at
that moment be hunted down, or in danger of it.

"Perhaps I have," Jerry replied quietly, giving no heed to my
disagreeable manner of speaking.

"What is it, lad?" Darius asked curiously. "I take it that at such a
time as this a bit of advice, no matter from whom it comes, is well
worth listenin' to."

"Why not go straight into Washington, an' stay there till we find a
chance to slip down the river?"

"Into Washington?" Jim Freeman cried in alarm. "Why the Britishers
have promised to burn the town!"

"I know that, an' it ain't likely any of our people will go there
because of that same thing."

"An' yet you allow that we should stick our noses into the mess?"
Darius asked.

"Ay, because the Britishers never will suspect that any who took part
in the fight would go there. It should be possible to find a
hiding-place somewhere in the town, an' it strikes me we wouldn't be
in as much danger as if we kept with the crowd."

I began to think that there was more in Jerry's scheme than appeared
when he first suggested it, and Darius seemed to be considering the
matter very seriously.

"In the first place," my partner continued, warming to the subject
when he saw that we were interested, "it would be necessary to get
there before the Britishers took possession, an' it might be we could
pass ourselves off as fellows who had stayed in the town like cowards,
rather than take the chances of bein' shot."

"It's a pretty good scheme, lad, an' I for one am willin' to try it,"
Darius said abruptly as he rose to his feet. "If the others think as I
do, we'd better be movin'."

After the old man had thus spoken there was not one of us who would
have ventured to