The last declaration was made modestly, almost reverently, and a few moments of silence followed. Then the lad went on:
“This reveals my plan, and shows why I need you. As a trusted scout at the British headquarters, I hope to learn enough about the commander’s movements to keep our officers between here and Fort Stanwix fully posted. But some other must carry the news. That is to be your work. At regular appointed places just outside the British lines, one or more of you will always be in waiting. To you I will come with everything our men should know. I hope, too, we may be able to delay, if not thwart altogether, many of the red-coats’ plans.”
“Will they soon be here?” Joe asked.
“Some time to-morrow,” Ira (as we shall now call him) replied. “I have kept just ahead of the fleet since it started down the St. Lawrence. At noon it was becalmed thirty miles up the lake. But a breeze sprang up, as you know, at sundown, and it must be under way again. The British will come slowly; but by daylight we ought to see the first vessels from this headland.”
“I don’t s’pose you know how many there are?” questioned Dan.
“Vessels? yes,” was the answer. “There are sixty-one in all, frigates, schooners, sloops, and transports. But the number of the troops I have not yet got at clearly enough to make a report. That will be our task as they land. We’ll stay here to-night, and early in the morning move camp to the place I have chosen as our rendezvous while the enemy is in this locality. Then we will return here, or to some other place where we can watch the landing.”
For some time longer they discussed the exciting situation, and then sought their rude beds within the tent.
Nothing disturbed their slumbers during the night hours; but with the first light of the morning all were astir. Ira had been the first to awake, and, rising, he hurried away to the edge of the promontory and looked up the lake. The next instant he wheeled about, and went back to the camp rapidly.
“Quick!” he cried in a low tone. “The fleet is not over five miles away, and we must be on the move. It won’t do to stop here even long enough to get breakfast.”
His companions needed no other warning. Springing up they aided in emptying the canoe of its contents, after which the light craft was carried some distance into the forest, and hidden in a dense thicket. Returning to the camp they speedily took down the tent, packed it and all their belongings into four bundles, and, shouldering these, hastened off toward the west under the guidance of their chief.