"Sure and Oi wouldn't moind travelling a bit with you, if it wasn't for the awful hours you're keepin'," said Tim, yawning. "You keep us all up all night with good stories aginst which Oi have nothing, but to rout a man from his bed of roses at such an hour as we were this very morning is positively indacent."
"There go the officers," said the trooper on their right, as the little group rode past. They had been following in the company's rear, but the halt told them that something had happened up front and they were galloping up to investigate. The bright uniforms and well-fed forms impressed Tom with the great difference between these well-paid soldiers of a foreign monarch and his own struggling friends.
"They make a pretty sight," he said, half to himself.
"Why don't you join the regiment then?" asked one of the soldiers, who was paid a commission for securing recruits. "We all have a chance to rise, you know, and a couple of likely young fellows like yourselves ought to get along rapidly.
"But if we joined," said Tim, "and ever fell into the other side's clutches, then where would we be?"
"And with such capable men above us as yourself our promotion would, I'm afraid, be slow," Tom added, diplomatically.
The ambitious Britisher was too much flattered by this last remark to have any good reply ready, and before he could think up any new reasons, word ran down the column to move forward.
"They may have found a trail," said a Redcoat as the news sifted back through the ranks.
"Just the two of them?" queried a comrade. "I'm surprised that they found it."