“So!” was the thought of the listener. “Herbert Camp spoke the truth then. Hyde was the nephew of whom Tryon wrote.”
“It was high time for us to go,” said Henderson. “I felt it in my bones, days before the Long Island fight. That fellow Prentiss seemed growing too keen to be comfortable.”
“Prentiss?” the big man repeated the name inquiringly.
“Yes; the messenger sent us from Boston.”
“Ah! that was his name, was it? Now, there was a confounded knave for you. He was willing to sell us all out to Putnam, I’m told.”
“Yes. And he’d just as willingly sold out Putnam to us. It made little difference to him.”
“It’s fortunate that we received word as to his true character when we did,” said Henderson. “Otherwise he would have come to know every man of us for what we really were.”
“You should have got rid of the scoundrel,” growled the burly man. “There are more ways than one.”
“We tried several,” said Hyde. “Once we invited him to dinner to our place in Wall Street. But he refused.”
A shudder ran through the listener. He had indeed been near to death on that spring evening.