For a moment, the surprised tories stood mute in alarm and doubt, alternately glancing from their armed opponent to the landlord, and from the latter to the door and windows, as if weighing the chances and means of escape. But, the next instant, two of them suddenly turned, and drawing and flourishing their knives behind them, sprang for the open windows, with the intention of leaping through them.
“At 'em, Roarer!” exclaimed Coffin, seizing one escaping tory by the leg, and hurling him back with stunning effect upon the floor.
The dog was but little behind his master in drawing back, by a grip in his clothes, the other to the floor, where he was glad to lie without offering further resistance to the grim and growling conqueror standing over him. The third, in the mean while, not daring to stir lest a worse fate should befall him, standing as he was directly before the muzzle of Woodburn's pistol, and seeing the situation of his comrades, immediately submitted; when all, giving up their concealed arms, now quietly yielded themselves as prisoners.
In a few minutes after the surrender of the tories, their guns were brought in by Dunning and Bart, who found them at the suspected place, though the traitor, Redding, whom they identified, had just taken the alarm, and was seen retreating over a distant knoll as they came up to the spot.
The prisoners being left in charge of the landlord's oldest boy, who was armed for the purpose, and the dog Roarer, the rest of the company now retired to another part of the house, to devise measures for the rescue of the fair captives, for which a preliminary step only had as yet been taken. Having at length fixed on the plan of operations which they believed most promising of auspicious results, they immediately commenced their hasty preparations for the bold adventure. And Dunning's six recruits luckily arriving in season, the whole company, now consisting of ten resolute woodsmen, and led on by a man fully resolved to succeed or perish, set forward, a little after sunset, for the scene of action, which was several miles distant from the tavern. According to the plan that had been adopted, two men were to proceed to the eastern shore of the pond, take a log canoe, and, under cover of the darkness, row silently over to some point beyond, but near the tory encampment; and, after making what discoveries they could respecting the situation of the captives, lie in ambush and await the operations of the rest of the company, who were to proceed round by the road, enter the woods, and gain a post on the other side of the encampment, and, by a feigned attack, draw off the tories, and thus afford the former a favorable moment to rush from their concealment and release the captives. And if they found this impracticable, they were then to shout aloud the watchword, To the rescue! when both parties of the assailants were to make an earnest and desperate onset on the foe. Dunning and Bart, from their known sagacity and skill as woodsmen and coolness and intrepidity in action, were the two men selected to undertake the more difficult and hazardous part first mentioned.
After a rapid and silent march of about an hour, the company reached the vicinity of the pond, just as the last suffusions of an obscured twilight disappeared in the west, and halted a few minutes, that the different parts of the plan might be repeated and clearly understood by all before separating.
“Remember the arrangement, boys,” said Woodburn, addressing Dunning and Bart, in a voice which betrayed the intense solicitude he felt in the event at issue. “Recollect the first and main object is to release and get off the ladies, and if this can be done within the hour we will give you for the purpose, as it possibly may be, before we make any demonstrations in front, so much the better; if not, proceed in the manner agreed on. And may Heaven favor the innocent, whose cause, remember, is mostly in your hands.”
With this the company separated, and each party proceeded to their different destinations. We will follow the two intrusted with the most difficult part of the enterprise.