the matter, nor should the Avenger leave her moorings;
but, fortunately, I remembered that we couldn't hold the pungy there
to be destroyed when the enemy came up the river, and, to tell the
absolute truth, I was ashamed to declare bluntly that I had no idea of
casting in my lot with such a firebrand as Commodore Barney.

"We ought to leave here in an hour," Jerry said, making answer because
he thought I was trying to figure how long it would take us to make
ready. "Amos won't need more than ten minutes to get what stuff his
mother is puttin' up for him, an' I'm goin' round by the mill to see
if they will trust us for half a bushel of meal."

He was off like an arrow as he spoke, and Darius had no idea that I
was hesitating as to the course to pursue, for an old fighter like him
supposed it would be a pleasure for me to voluntarily go into the
worst kind of a row.

It was fortunate indeed for me that the old man never suspected what
was in my heart, otherwise I would have been shamed in my home to such
an extent that I could never go there again; but all that came to mind
later. Just then I felt as if I was being cruelly wronged by those who
should have stood my friends.

Darius would have told me yet further of what Commodore Barney had
done in the past; but I cut him short by saying like a spoiled child:

"I don't care to hear anything more about him; just now it strikes me
that we'd better be thinking of ourselves."

The old man looked really distressed, and but for the fact that my
heart was sore, I could have laughed because of the mistake he made.
Darius really believed that I was grieving over being thus obliged to
leave my mother and the children, and he said soothingly:

"I come somewhere near knowin' how it is, lad. At such a time as this
the least home talk that's made, the better, for it kind'er unstrings
a fellow. You wait here, an' I'll go after what dunnage your mother is
gettin' together; she'll understand that a short partin' is the best."

I could not have stopped him, for he was off before I had time to so
much as open my mouth, and there I stood leaning against the canoe,
giving the people of Benedict to believe I was eager to be fighting
for my country.

Jim Freeman and his companions came along a few moments after Darius
left, and in order to have some occupation, rather than from a desire
to serve them, I offered to put the three aboard the Avenger.

They talked of nothing but what the