"It's too hot to go on," said the young lieutenant. "I'm almost afraid to take my horse out in such heat. I've got the most of my work for the day done, though, and I thought that perhaps you might be able to help me out, Tom. You must know every bridge in this part of the country. Now you go over this map with me, and tell me if the places are marked right. I've been gone so long I'm not sure of myself, but you ought to know. It'll save me a trip in this broiling sun, if you can help me."
Tom took the map and looked over it carefully. He was thoroughly familiar with the roads and streams, as the lieutenant had intimated, and in a brief time he had given him all the information he possessed.
"There," said the lieutenant at last, folding the paper and restoring it to his pocket again, "that helps me out. I'd been over most of the way, and the two or three places you have told me about finishes the whole thing. I'm ready to go back and report. I think I'll take a bite, though, before I start, and wait and see what the weather is likely to be."
Going to his saddle-bags the young officer brought out the dinner which he carried with him. "Sometimes I stop at some farmhouse and get something to eat," he explained, "but it isn't always safe to trust to that, you see, so I always go provided. I want you to join me, Tom. It'll seem almost like old times."
The horse had been tied to one of the trees, and, as the lieutenant seated himself upon the ground, Tom gladly joined him. He was tired and hungry, and the piece of bread which he had in his own pocket would keep, and, as he was aware that he might find further use for it, he was the more willing to accept the invitation which had been given him. For a few minutes neither spoke, for they both seemed to be intent upon the immediate duty.
As soon, however, as the first pangs of his hunger were relieved Tom said, "I never understood just why it was that the British left Philadelphia. They'd been there all winter, and after holding the city so long I never could understand why it was that they abandoned it without even a skirmish. What did they do it for?"
"Why, the way of it was this," replied the lieutenant, taking an unusually large bite of the bread he was holding in his hand, as he spoke. "You see, we'd been trying for a long time to get up some kind of a treaty with France. Ben Franklin, and I don't know who all, had been over there trying to work it up, and at last the Frenchmen agreed. Our Congress ratified the treaty on the 4th of last May, and that completely changed the plans of the redcoats."
"I don't see just how that could do it," replied Tom, somewhat puzzled.
"Why it really means a declaration of war by the French against the British. I don't believe the Frenchmen care very much for us, barring young Lafayette and a few others of his kind, but they hate the British, and took this way to get even with them. It's expected that they'll send a fleet over here, and of course the redcoats have got to be ready to meet it,—that is, if they can. Well, Philadelphia doesn't amount to very much any way in war times. It isn't very easy to get into it, so the British there thought they'd better get out and go over to New York, which was a good deal more likely to be threatened by the French fleets. That's the cause of the change, my lad."
"I should think the redcoats would feel like giving up, now that the French are going to join us."