“Oh, easy enough! The band forgot to cover their trail this time, and I tracked ’em. But look ye again at th’ paper. Do ye not know him? You’ve seen him a hundred times.”
The colonel read the description over again carefully, then paused for a moment in thought.
“There is a man in the garrison,” said he, “who answers to this description, but then of course we should be mad to think it meant Captain Edgar Sherwood!”
“I thought ye’d know him!” said Putney, and his eye twinkled with satisfaction. “No madness about it, colonel. He’s the man—this villain Iron Hand and our cap’n are one!”
“Why, man, it is impossible!” cried the colonel, starting to his feet, with astonishment. “What! Sherwood a British spy! No, no, no!”
“Sartin, sir, sartin! Bill Hawkins and I saw him in their camp yesterday, and he war their leader. I took down his description, and we’ll sw’ar to it.”
Colonel Hall paced up and down the floor in great agitation. Every little circumstance which had taken place during the past few days again appeared to him, but in a changed form. After a few moments’ thought, he was obliged to admit that some things had transpired which looked suspicious. Sherwood’s story about being nearly buried, might be only a fabulous invention gotten up to cloak his real actions, and the wound, perchance, he may have received in the fray.
It also occurred to him now, that Sherwood, during the past month, had been frequently absent from the fort, sometimes for a day and night together. Then, again, the father of his betrothed, Thomas Lear, was known to be a stanch Tory, and although it was reported that Sherwood and he had quarreled when the former entered the American army, yet this might have been done for the purpose of carrying out their deception.
“I suspect that’s why the cap’n was late with th’ soldiers th’ night th’ Tories attacked the Whig’s house, ’cause he war waitin’ for ’em to finish th’ job,” said Putney, adding additional fuel to the fire.
“Great heavens!” exclaimed the colonel, stopping short in his walk. “Have we all been blinded by this villain? Can it really be that Sherwood is a traitor?”