“Do you remember asking me if I listened to the brook?” Esther asked laughingly, as they stood looking at the dancing waters of the stream. “Well, I know now just what you meant. It’s company, isn’t it?”
Then Faith told her of the “Chiming Waters” of Ticonderoga, and of some of the old tales of the lake that her aunt and Nathan had related.
“Did you see the English soldiers?” questioned Esther.
“Oh, yes.” And Faith described the skating party on the lake that the redcoats had interfered with. “I wish I could see Ethan Allen, as I did that day in September, and tell him all about the fort and the soldiers, and ask him to drive the English away. My father says that Colonel Allen could drive them away,” said Faith.
“Of course he could! My father says so, too,” agreed Esther. “Would it not be a fine thing for us to send him a letter, Faith, and ask him?”
“Oh, Esther! That’s just what I thought of. But we ought to do it right away, for more soldiers are coming to the fort, Nathan Beaman says, and then it won’t be so easy,” responded Faith.
The two little girls talked earnestly. They both knew of the cave on the rocky slope near Lake Dunmore, and that messages were sometimes left there for the settlers. But Lake Dunmore was a long distance away.
“It would take all day to go and get back,” said Esther, “and our mothers would never let us go; you know they wouldn’t.”
“One of us ought to go to-morrow,” answered Faith, “but how can we plan it?”
“I know! I know!” declared Esther. “I’ll ask your mother if you may come for a visit, and then you’ll go home at night. Some time you can tell her all about it,” concluded Esther as she noticed Faith’s serious and doubtful expression.