"Well I'm blowed if you don't look kind'er cozy here! Who'd think this crowd had been hob-nobbin' with the Britishers for the last two or three days? Bob Hanaford, where did the lads run afoul of you, an' why didn't you get your pungy down river before the enemy's fleet came up?"
There was a deal of handshaking and congratulations before we settled down to anything like rational talk, and then Jerry and I told how we found the captain, and what had happened since Darius left the smoke-house.
Then it was the old man's turn to give an account of his misadventures, and this he did after refreshing himself with an enormous piece of tobacco.
"I went out, leavin' you people in hidin', with the idee that if many shops were to be robbed by the soldiers I might get somethin' to eat out'er the general wreck. First off nothin' came my way, an' then I ran square across a basket of ship's bread. Thinks I, this is good enough for one trip, an' I gathered the stuff under my arm, puttin' for the smoke-house under full sail without bein' noticed by the red-coats, who were havin' too lively a time to give me much attention. As luck would have it, the thought never came into my mind that I had need to look for anybody but Britishers, an' before I was halfway to port I struck up agin that sneak, Elias Macomber.
"Then it was I understood that the red-coats wasn't the only snags in the road, an' I gave him one clip on the jaw that I counted would knock him down an' out; but my calkerlations was wrong. Instead of topplin' over as a decent man would have done after gettin' the full weight of my fist, he began to screech an' yell fit to raise the dead. My legs moved mighty lively jest then, for a blind man could have seen what might happen; but the Britishers had me foul before I'd more'n got well started. No less than six grappled me, an' I hauled down my flag, 'cause there wasn't any sense in makin' a bad matter worse.
"Them soldiers must have had orders in advance to lug any prisoners they might take, to the shanty back of the arsenal, for they steered a straight course for the place without stoppin' to ask any man's advice, an' what chafed me more'n everythin' else was that rat of a Macomber, close at my heels, as he told what he would do now that his friends had taken possession of the country. I contrived to give him one kick on the shins which I'll guarantee he remembers this minute, an' then he kept well back in the rear. That's the end of the yarn, lads."
"But where did you meet Bill?" I asked.
"In the jail. He was brought up with a sharp turn durin' the retreat, bein' so stuffy that he kept well in the rear, instead of pushin' ahead as he might have done."
"Did Macomber succeed in getting into the prison?"
"He wasn't inside, an' that's a fact; but he stood at the window, an' kept shoutin' all kinds of threats till one of the sentries drove him away, havin' had too much of his yip."