"Since last night? Why, after what you two have done it seems as if the only thing left was to enlist. You surely can't go back to Philadelphia—"
"That isn't so certain. Enoch is going with Greene, the spy, and if I can give father the slip I shall travel in his company."
As a matter of course Seth was eager to understand what Master Ludwick meant, and in the fewest possible words Enoch explained the proposition that had been made to him.
"I suppose of course it's your duty to go if you can be of any service," Seth said slowly; "but I have counted so much on having you and Jacob for comrades that it will be a big disappointment. It is too bad for you not to be members of the army now when it seems as if the end of the struggle was close at hand."
"What has happened to make you think anything of that kind is near?" Enoch asked in surprise. "Philadelphia is still in the possession of the British; General Washington has not moved from these his winter-quarters, and at the very beginning of the campaign General Lafayette has been forced to retreat."
"But the alliance will make a great difference. Now that we are to have the assistance of the French troops—"
"What do you mean?" and both Enoch and Jacob looked bewildered.
"Haven't you heard that the French king has acknowledged the independence of the United States, and declares that he will befriend us?"
"I knew last winter it was hoped such might be the case, but don't understand that anything has been effected toward that end as yet."
"Then General Howe has succeeded in keeping the news from our people better than I supposed possible. You should have been in camp here from the third to the seventh of this month, and then you would have understood what hopes every one is building upon the alliance. It was announced to the army on the third, and on the seventh the soldiers celebrated the good news."