This barber and the corporal had the knack possessed by small boys and dogs, of nosing into every opening whence anything might be seen, and had come by far more and far other information than they were properly entitled to possess. Dick had begun the day with the knowledge, won in his own experience, that in every score of people there are two or three such investigating persons. Keen observation had enabled him to single out the two such from the host of men he met in the barracks, and by the closest attention he had picked out, from the chaff of their talk, the few grains that were to his purpose. It was not, therefore, mere good luck that had brought him so promptly a better approximate account of the city's heavy armament than he could have obtained in hours of suspicious loitering around the various batteries.

At ten o'clock he reported to Colonel Maclean at the latter's temporary headquarters. He had to give an account of his supposed journey from Montreal and of how he had contrived to pass the American camp. Maclean said it would be useless to send him back with a message to General Carleton, as the latter's whereabouts would doubtless remain unknown until his arrival at Quebec, which might occur at any time. He proposed, therefore, that Dick should enlist in the Royal Highland Emigrants.

Dick, who had borne in mind from the first that his task must be done ere the arrival of Carleton, as the governor would know him from the genuine messenger, replied that to serve in the Emigrants was the ambition of his life. The colonel asked Dick what soldiering he had seen. Dick replied, "Nane, afore the fighting between the Lakes and Montreal. But, considering the stock I'm of, I should tak' well to the profession, seeing that I hae done weel at most things I've put a hand to, from the rifle to the quill pen." At the last words, the colonel looked at the mass of papers on his table, as Dick had designed he should do, and said, "If ye have skill at pen waurk, there's a task of copying ye might set to, before we mak' a Royal Emigrant of ye. My secretary is more useful at the new fortifications these times, having the gift of construction in works as well as in words; yet I'm sore wishful for a copy of these letters, for my ain keeping."

Dick repressed his elation, and it was soon arranged that he should forthwith write out a copy of some correspondence that the colonel set before him. Maclean then left the office, to make his usual rounds, and Dick was left alone with an adjutant, a door-attendant, and two guards at the entrance. The adjutant sat writing at one side of the table, Dick at the opposite side, both using ink from the same receptacle.

To his disappointment, Dick found the correspondence to concern a bygone question of misappropriated supplies, and hence to be of no value as information for his commander. While he wrote, his eye ranged the table, at intervals, and took in every visible bit of writing thereon, making note of such sheets, wholly or partly in view, as contained matter arranged in columns. He acquainted himself with the exact location of three such sheets among the countless others that encumbered the table. He then waited the opportunity that would come with the adjutant's departure from the room.

But the adjutant, whose work was behind, through his having accepted more than his regular duties, continued to write. Shortly after noon, the colonel returned, with some of his staff, and had dinner in the adjoining room. Dick was sent to dine with his mess. He made short work of dinner, and hastened back, hoping he might arrive at the office table before the adjutant, who was to have dined with the colonel's staff. But Dick found the adjutant already at work, an odor of wine about him telling that he had finished his dinner. The colonel and the other officers presently went out, as they had done in the forenoon. The afternoon passed on as the forenoon had, with the difference that, outside the window, snow began to fall. Dick utilized some of the time by transcribing, on a bare sheet of paper, the statement he had recorded on his piece of biscuit, which he now set before him on the table as if intending presently to eat it. He then adroitly slipped the sheet of paper from the table to his lap and thrust it carefully beneath his jacket with his left hand while continuing to write with the other.

When the gray afternoon began to darken, Dick resolved on a desperate measure. As if his hunting-knife galled him, he took it from his belt and placed it on the table, with its point thrust under the inkstand. A few minutes later, as if to remove it out of the way of his paper, he lifted it suddenly in such manner that it overturned the inkstand, deluging one of the adjutant's hands with ink. That officer arose with an expression of disgust, darted an angry look at Dick, called the attendant to mop up the ink, and went into a closet to wash his hand.

Dick, with a pretence of rescuing the papers from the spreading pool of ink, swiftly grasped the three sheets he had singled out and placed them, each on top of a different pile, within range of his eye. The adjutant, returning to his delayed work, did not notice what rearrangement Dick had made of the papers. While the two wrote silently on, Dick scanned the farthest of the three papers. He soon saw that it was a list of provisions, and of trivial consequence. The next one of the three turned out to be a statement of arms needed to complete the equipment of a certain militia company. Dick turned his eye, with diminishing hopes, to the third and last. This is what he saw there, and copied in feverish haste, with trembling fingers:

In garrison at Quebec, November 17th.
70 Royal Fusileers.
230 Royal Emigrants.
22 Artillery, fire-workers, etc.
330 British militia.
543 Canadians.
400 Seamen.
50 Masters and men of vessels.
35 Marines.
120 Artificers.
———
1800

The copy of this return, deluged with sand in Dick's impatience to dry the ink, followed the artillery account to concealment, and Dick, casting a peculiar smile across the table at the busily writing adjutant, went on copying the colonel's correspondence.