“I'll tell you why I come, Dick. After you left your quarters in New York, I got to thinking, and I remembered what I had told mother–that I would go to war with you and fight side by side with you, you know, and I thought of how I had let you go away on a dangerous spying expedition alone, and I decided to follow you. I went and asked permission of General Washington to come over here, and he gave it.”
“He was willing for you to come, then, was he?”
“Yes. He held back a little at first, but when I told him about having promised mother I would stick by you, he then said I might come.”
“Well, it has been all right, so far. You got here just in time to frighten those redcoats away, but I don't believe that two can do spy-work successfully.”
“We don't need to both actually do the spy-work, Dick. You can do that, and I'll stay back and wait and watch, and then if anything should happen to you, I would perhaps be able to render you some assistance.”
“True. Well, now that you are here, you may as well stay with me. We'll go on down in the neighborhood of the British encampment together, and then you can hunt at hiding-place and I will go ahead and see what I can do in the way of spying.”
“Very well, Dick. That will suit me.”
“Come, then.”
“You were not hit by the bullet from the redcoat's musket, Dick?” somewhat anxiously.
“No, Tom. At the very moment he fired I tripped over a vine and fell headlong to the ground. I was still lying there when I heard you fire your pistol, and then I heard you yell, ‘Come on, boys’, and recognized your voice; but I was sorely puzzled. I didn't know what to think. I almost thought I must have dreamed it.”