"Come this way, Jones," said I, leading him aside from the others. "I do not know which way you are going, but I want you to help me through the lines into the city. Can you do so?"
"But, Lieutenant, they will be wanting to hang you if you are caught."
"I will take that risk. I must be in the city within a week."
Jones, like most great frontiersmen, was a man of quick decision and few words.
"Meet me in an hour," said he, "at the Yellow Tavern."
An hour later found me at the tavern in full uniform, for it was the only suit I possessed in which it would be possible to present myself before a lady, so dilapidated, torn, and ragged was my wardrobe. But I had a great storm-coat which hid the uniform and was an admirable disguise.
The tavern was crowded. As I stood by the fire I did not at once notice a quiet, unassuming traveller who had just entered, until he brushed past my arm and whispered, "Follow me." I did so a few minutes later, for it was Tom Jones, who looked for all the world as if he was a quiet city merchant, born and bred within its limits. Yet you had but to notice his walk, and you saw at once that he was a mountaineer, for he threaded his way through the crowd as noiselessly as he did among his native forests, where the crack of a dead twig might mean his death by a hostile bullet.
I followed him out into the night, and a dark and dismal night it was; the snow was falling heavily and you could not see three rods away.
"We will follow the pike," said he, "until we see their camp-fire. They will not keep strict watch to-night, and we will have to keep in touch with the landmarks."
We trudged along through the snow past the outpost where I had commanded so many nights, keeping the vigils by the weary hours; then we became more careful, as the Highland outpost was but a few yards away.