Stark was holding a conference with a handful of his captains in the little hollow between Plowed Hill and Winter Hill. It had probably been a green valley once, but now the young grass was all trampled away, and so was a field of what had started out to be Indian corn. All about stretched the tents and crude wooden shelters of the New Hampshire men. The colonel was in his shirt sleeves, and his lean face looked grimmer than usual. He had no smile of greeting, but he did not seem to be angry any more.
“See you brought your horse, Tom, like I said. Was surprised when ’twas reported to me you owned such an animal. They’re scarcer’n hen’s teeth around here.”
“I only borrowed him, sir,” replied Tom quickly. “Borrowed him in Charlestown. He belongs in Newburyport. When I can, I mean to return him home.”
“Don’t hurry about it,” replied the colonel. “See that cart over there?” He pointed to a heavy wagon, empty, three young men standing close by. A horse was fastened between the shafts of it, but he was a lank, ill-favored nag and looked scarce able to go.
“Yes, sir,” said Tom.
“Then take your critter over to help the other one pull. General Ward has promised to issue some lead to us, if we send to Cambridge for it. That’s Peter Christie, Hugh Watts, and Asa Senter who are going with you. Good lads. I knew their folks in Londonderry before I was grown. Be as quick as you can about it, too. We haven’t got enough powder and ball to scare off a herd of deer, let alone the British Army.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom again. He waited for further instructions, but none were forthcoming. Colonel Stark turned back to his worried-looking officers. After a moment Tom led his horse over to the wagon.
The Londonderry men were indeed good fellows, he soon found out, used to the same life as he. They had fished in the same streams and hunted over the same mountains, knew as little about books and high living, as much about how to plant corn or cut down a white pine so it would fall the right way. And soon they were all singing crude old-fashioned country songs as they drove along the winding road.
Tom looked westward across the pleasant farms to the faint blue line of hills beyond them, and he thought of the unseen army that was supposed to be circling tightly all around Boston, an army of men like himself and the Londonderry boys. Some said it was ten thousand strong, and some said twenty, all the way from Medford River to Jamaica Plain. He thought of that other army, swaggering through the streets of Boston; men, he supposed, like that redcoat captain he’d brought home in chains a while back—and nobody knew what strength they had. He remembered Kitty’s warning that the British meant to strike by the week’s end. Well, here it was, Friday, June sixteenth, and the weather hotter’n the burning roof of hell. If the British were coming, they’d better be on their way. Maybe they were on their way. Everybody in camp was worn out and restless with expecting them, but nobody seemed to know.
Just then his horse gave a neigh, laid back its ears, and stood still. Perforce, the other horse halted, too.