"Take his musket, for it must appear as if he had gone back to the camp, and see to it that you wipe out all traces of a struggle, while I carry him into the thicket."
Then the boy lifted Ephraim to his shoulder as if he had been no more than a package of bulky merchandise, and while Evan carried out the instructions to the best of his ability, the spy was taken an hundred yards or more into the thicket.
Here Nathan halted until his comrade joined him, when the two continued the flight until they were fully half a mile from the trail, and all this while Ephraim Sowers was unable to give vent to his anger or his fears.
"That was a neat job, and one that need not interfere with the purpose of our journey," Nathan said in a tone of exultation, as he wiped the perspiration from his face and sat down where he could look full at the discomfited Tory. "By this means we have made certain of coming face to face with Ephraim Sowers again, for I misdoubt if he would have been found in the battle unless peradventure the Britishers were getting much the best of it."
"Now that we have got the sneak, what is to be done with him?"
"Tie him up here until we have concluded our work, and then carry him back to the men of Colonel Clarke's command, who have a score to settle because of his efforts to deliver them over to their butchers."
The expression in Ephraim's eyes gave good token of the terror which was in his heart, and in furtherance of the plan he had lately conceived Nathan took the gag from the boy's mouth.
"Those men would murder me!" Ephraim screamed as soon as his mouth was freed from the gag.
"Ay, so it appears to me, else will they be more forgiving than I can well believe," Nathan replied calmly, as if in his mind the spy was already doomed.
"Would you take me, who has never done you any wrong, to where I shall be killed?" he whined.