“Oh! Well, this isn’t—well, it isn’t just work, you know. But you can make a neat sum if you want to stand in the game.”
“I’ll stand in no game that isn’t strictly honest,” burst out Henry, and now his suspicion was aroused.
“Oh, all right!”
“What have you in mind to do?”
“Nothing—if that’s the way you feel about it,” retorted Prent, and turning on his heel, he walked rapidly away.
After that the other soldiers were more careful than ever of their movements. But Henry could not get the talk out of his mind, and he at last resolved to play the spy, and see what they were doing, or proposed to do.
One day Henry was on guard, from two in the afternoon until six. At that hour Fenley came to relieve him, while Prent came to relieve another soldier named Groom. Groom at once retired to his quarters, but Henry merely walked around the corner, where he secreted his musket in an out-of-the-way place, and then crawled back in the darkness, for the winter day was now at an end.
From the broken stonework of a house steps, Henry saw Prent walk up and down his beat several times, meeting Fenley at one end. Then Prent gave a low whistle, to which Fenley instantly responded. A moment later Prent disappeared into one of the stores he had been set to guard.
“He is up to no good, that is certain,” reasoned Henry. “I wish I could see just what he is doing.”
Watching his opportunity, he sped quickly across the street, which at this point was not very wide. The store, or shop, stood on a corner, and on the side was a broken window, partly boarded up. A board was loose at its lower end, and, lifting it up, Henry crawled through the window.