An orderly met the young Lieutenant at the door. "Your presence is requested at headquarters, sir," he said, and hurried off.
The city was going to be abandoned, and to George Frothingham was given the important charge of conducting the precious powder train through the lanes and by-ways of Manhattan Island to the new position Washington had taken at Harlem Heights.
LUMBERING VANS TRUNDLED AND JOLTED ALONG WITH THE REAR-GUARD.
At noon the caravan was ready to start. Besides the lumbering vans, two brass field-pieces trundled and jolted along with the rear-guard. George knew well the best route to take, and gave the orders to push ahead up the old "King's Highway"—the post-road to Boston.
At a street corner as they passed were standing some soldiers of one of the commands that had not received marching orders. Running out into the street, one of the men touched a tall private on the elbow. It was Thomas, the former porter in Mr. Wyeth's office. He held in his hand a buckskin bag of bullets.
"Brother Ralston," he said, "here are some leaden pills. Shoot straight with them." Then he noticed George, and saluted. Pouring something out in his hand, he came up close. "Slip them into your pocket for a keepsake, Mr. Frothingham," he said. "They are some of those that were moulded out of the statue of King George himself."
George took them, and remembered the time when he and his brother had looked at this same statue when they had that first unhappy parting with Carter Hewes three years before. How differently had things terminated. He smiled sadly to himself as he slipped the new shining bullets into the pocket of his coat.
As they trudged along through the hot sun and the dust, a young officer, scarcely nineteen, galloped up and down the line, hurrying on those in the rear, and keeping the column well together to prevent straggling. He did not shout his orders, but talked in a low, intense voice; his movements were quick and nervous, but his graceful figure sat erect on his horse, and he seemed to take in everything with a rapid glance of his handsome deep-set eyes. George saw at once that it was his friend who had lent him his first Lieutenant's uniform, and whose name he had forgotten to ask. Chagrined, he thought that he could only explain that the wet had ruined everything, and the gay coat had been discarded.