He gave no heed to my first question, but replied to the second by saying:
"I allow I'll stay with you lads till sunrise. It's a bit lonesome loafing around here alone, and, like you, I know of no place where I can find a bed. We'll hang together as neighbors should."
"We'll do nothing of the kind, Abel Hunt," I cried hotly. "I claim the right to choose my own friends."
"Oh, you do, eh?" the fellow cried with a coarse laugh. "Well perhaps in this case you haven't got any rights. At least, before allowing it I want to know why you are here, and how you happen to be wandering around the camp of an enemy, for surely you rebels count the king's soldiers as enemies."
I understood on the instant that I had made a mistake in thus speaking angrily; but it was too late to make amends, as I thought, and would have moved on but that Pierre said just as Abel Hunt barred my way by stepping in front of me:
"I see no reason, Fitz, why even though you may not be friendly with this lad, he should not remain with us, at least until morning. I can well fancy that if he, like you and me, has no place in which to lay his head this night, companionship of any kind would be very sweet. At least, I know it is with me, and, with your permission, shall welcome him."
"You will because you don't dare do different," Hunt cried triumphantly, and Pierre said with a note of sharpness in his tones:
"Since that is your belief, Master Hunt, we will prove to you the contrary," and Pierre, ruffling like a pigeon, strode off with a great assumption of dignity, I as a matter of course following.
When we came upon Abel Hunt we were going directly toward old Mary's cabin; but now Pierre turned at the next corner, walking slowly as if simply eager to pass the time, and headed in the direction of the river, while I kept close by his side mentally bewailing the little lad's unlucky desire to learn the location of the guard-house in which Saul was confined.
It was possible to see out of the tail of my eye, even though I had not heard his footsteps, that Abel Hunt was following less than half a dozen paces behind us, and a great fear came into my heart, for now I knew he was convinced we had had some hand in the disappearance of Horry Sims, and would act as our shadow in the hope of coming at the secret of the Tory's whereabouts.