Perhaps our suspicions of the lad prompted us to see more than really was presented; but certain it is I fancied that the officer, who was mounted, plied Horry with questions, to which the lad replied as if it gave him pleasure to impart information. I also suspected they were saying somewhat concerning our plantation, for now and again Horry pointed in the direction of my home, and the foot soldiers looked back as if fancying they might see the buildings in the distance, all of which was the more real to me because betwixt where we stood and the Hamilton plantation there was no other dwelling.
We remained there in hiding a full half hour, and then it appeared to me as if the officer and Horry Sims parted in friendly fashion, the lad to continue on toward York Town, and the officer and his men to march in our direction, as if counting to follow back on our trail.
As a matter of course there was nothing we lads could do save remain in hiding, trusting that our whereabouts would not be discovered, for, although we had been doing no harm, if a servant of his majesty should come to understand that we three lads were striving to keep out of sight, he might take it into his thick head to fancy we were bent on mischief.
In those days it was only needed that an officer in the service of the king should have a suspicion, in order to straightway plunge into difficulties that person toward whom the suspicions were directed.
We held ourselves in cover, therefore, and I confess to a sense of most profound relief when the squad continued on without giving heed to the possibility that there had been witnesses to the meeting with Horry Sims.
"THAT WE MIGHT PEER BETWEEN THE LEAVES."
"Now it is only for us to know where those gentlemen with the red coats may be going," little Frenchie said, shrugging his shoulders as we came out from the bushes and turned our faces in the direction from which we had just come, whereupon Saul asked hotly:
"Are you not for York Town? Have your legs grown weary with walking three or four miles?"