"Tell me all you know of the spy, so that I may warn our people against him with fair proof."
Neither Evan nor Nathan made any attempt at giving advice; the woman's courage so far eclipsed theirs that it was as if she should command and they obey—as if they had no right even to offer a suggestion. Obedient to her wishes they repeated all they had heard the vindictive Tory say, and described in detail his reception at Major Ferguson's camp.
"If you could only take us with you, or what would be better, so manage it that we might go in your stead," Nathan said when his account of Ephraim Sowers was brought to an end.
"I would willingly do so if it might be possible; but I can see no way to accomplish such a purpose."
"Yet there are many chances against your being able to ride the colt, however willing you may be," Evan said, as if hoping such suggestion might cause her to devise another means of forwarding the warning.
"I know full well how many chances there are against success, and yet because it is the only hope, I shall venture."
But little conversation was indulged in after this assertion, which seemed prompted by despair.
Nathan told the brave woman all he knew regarding the most direct path through the thicket to the American encampment, and Evan warned her to be on the alert for Sowers nearabout the spring, where both he and his comrade believed the spy had gone to make certain his intended victims did not escape.
Then all fell silent as if awed by the dangers which were to be voluntarily encountered, and presently the boys knew from the faint sounds that Sarah Dillard had stolen swiftly away without so much as a word of adieu.
"She will never be able to get an unbroken colt out of the stable, even if she succeeds in bridling him," Evan whispered, and Nathan replied with a certain hopefulness in his tone, although he was far from believing the venture might succeed: