"Not to so many that it would interfere with your doing all that might be required. If you should return home at once—this very day—it would not be difficult to persuade suspicious ones that you had never left the city."
Enoch was almost frightened by the proposition. He understood how much danger would be attached to such work, and fancied the enemy knew perfectly well who had carried the first information to General Lafayette; but yet he replied in as firm a tone as he could assume:
"I am ready to do anything, or go anywhere that is best for the cause."
"It is bravely spoken, my boy. Do not fear that the enemy are looking for you; I question very much if General Howe or his officers have the slightest idea that any information was carried to General Lafayette, save by the country people who saw the forces on the march. Will you be ready to go back with me this evening?"
"Yes; I only want to see Seth and Jacob a moment, and it is not really necessary I should do even that, for I could leave word I would soon come back."
"There is no reason why you shouldn't wait till Master Ludwick returns, and then I will show you where Seth's regiment is encamped."
Greene seated himself on the ground as if perfectly willing to remain there any length of time, and after tying the horse's bridle to the wheel of a cannon Enoch sat down beside the spy.
"How long have you been doing this kind of work?" he asked.
"Playing the spy, do you mean? I began last fall, when our army went into winter-quarters. There was some fear then that General Howe might take a notion to stir our folks up at a time when they were having about all they could do to keep body and soul together, without thinking of fighting, and I volunteered for the work. It seemed dangerous at first, as it now does to you; but I soon got over that idea, and grew to like the task."
"You would be hanged if captured?"