The newcomer leaped to the ground and gazed at the speaker earnestly before he spoke, and then it was to use almost precisely the same words his father had a few days previous in the British camp:
“You don’t look like him.”
“Well, you look like cousin Fred,” Ira replied, “though you may have grown a little since I last saw you,” (and he added under his breath, “but it is mighty little, for I saw you only yesterday”).
“I have grown lots since you visited us,” young Lyman declared with evident pride, “but see here, Ira, where have you been all the time since the rebels captured father?” and there was an angry tone in his voice.
But the young scout was not to be caught in that way.
“In Bennington,” he replied truthfully.
“I thought I saw you there hob-nobbing with the rebels.”
“One must sometimes appear friendly with the enemy, if he wants to learn all he can about them,” the lad answered meaningly. “See here!” and he drew from his coat the list of the Bennington stores and his rude map of the village, handing them without hesitation to the young Tory, as he added, “Does that look as if I had been idle?”
“No,” Fred admitted with some reluctance; “but why didn’t you go back to the fort after the soldiers? You might have had them here by this time, and rescued pa and Master Earle.”
“Because my orders were to obtain all the information about the goods and the town, that I could, and I am in the habit of obeying General Burgoyne’s commands,” was the reply, with a slight emphasis on the last three words.