"Be careful, uncle! Don't run your woolly pate into danger when there's no necessity for it!" I cried after him, and back to me on the night air came the quavering voice:
"De ole fox allers looks arter hisself when de houn's are 'roun'; but it's de cubs what are mos' likely fo' to get inter trubble."
Then little Frenchie and I were alone. Standing within the shelter of the foliage at the foot of the dead cottonwood, and placing my hands on his shoulders, for just then I literally ached to come into close touch with a friend, I said, striving to hold my voice steady:
"It may be, Pierre, that Saul and I had no right to drag you into this mad scheme of ours, for even since Uncle 'Rasmus has set off does it come to me that it is reckless for us to risk our lives in the hope of getting back the horses. I have little faith that we shall be able to accomplish anything as Minute Boys, therefore we must set it down in all honesty to ourselves that we are pressing forward simply to recover that which has been stolen, and we have no right to lead you into danger."
"Do not think I am boasting, Fitz Hamilton," and Pierre shrugged his shoulders in a way that caused me to laugh despite the heaviness of my heart; "but yet there comes in upon me the thought that mayhap it is I, the French lad from New Orleans, who is dragging you and Saul, rather than that you are dragging him."
CHAPTER IV
THE TOWN OF YORK
I had not counted that it would be possible for us to indulge in slumber after Uncle 'Rasmus had carried off the blankets; but yet before he was well on his way toward the village both of us were wrapped in sleep as profound as even when our bed was softer.