The Governor sailed up the river once more. When he reached Livingston Manor, it was dark and the Germans knew nothing of his coming nor of the prompt departure of the agent's servant through the forest to the north. The next afternoon they were called together. To their amazement the Governor appeared. In a stern voice he read a contract to them.
"But that is not our contract," protested a mystified John Conrad. "We—"
The Governor waved them from his presence.
"It is your contract. Think over your situation and return to-morrow."
That evening the older Germans talked earnestly in the Weiser house. They agreed to ask again that they be permitted to leave and that they be paid. But to resist they were helpless. Resistance, moreover, was wrong.
For a while Conrad listened; then he joined a score of young men who waited for him outside in the shadow.
"It is all for peace," said he. "I believe that Governor Hunter means to entrap them."
Quietly the young men slipped into the darker woods. Into a little cave high above the river, Conrad crept on hands and knees. One by one he passed out a dozen guns. Though the leader of the enterprise was the youngest of all, his friends looked at him with admiration. In their admiration Conrad forgot his own somewhat troublesome conscience.
In the morning, John Conrad and his friends visited the Governor. They had, they said, considered their situation, and they were not satisfied.
The Governor looked over their heads in the direction of Albany.