“As you are the best shot, you had better take it,” answered Henry.
“Then I’ll give you the knife,” went on the sharpshooter, and passed over the dagger.
The gun was in the same condition as when taken from the prison, and they had taken care to preserve the powder for priming.
They left the barn by a back door and lost no time in crossing a turnip and onion lot to a row of berry bushes skirting a ditch. Once at the ditch, they crawled along until they gained the shelter of the woods.
“Now we can make for the river,” said Silvers. “But how we are to get across remains a problem still to solve.”
“Perhaps we can find a canoe or a rowboat. Or, on a pinch, we can build a raft.”
“Not so easy, lad, without tools.”
The woods were thick with underbrush, and it was no mean task to push a way through. Soon, however, they came to a well-beaten path, and along this they moved faster, Silvers in the lead, and both with eyes and ears strained to the utmost, for a possible sign of an enemy.
“There is a building ahead,” said the sharpshooter, after a quarter of a mile had been covered.
It proved to be a fair-sized summer house, standing on a rocky cliff. Beyond was a series of rough stone steps, leading to the river bank, far below. At the shore was a rude dock, and here rested a long, strange-looking object, half boat and half raft, piled high with some straw and several barrels of pitch.