"Simon Glass was here," cried Nathan. "He tried to kill me. He just ran out! Don't let him get away!"
The name of the Tory ruffian was familiar to all, and the angry and excited men swarmed from both sides into the middle-room. A private appeared on the scene with a lighted lantern, and by the yellow glare the door of the guard-room was discovered to be wide open.
"The spy has escaped," roared the sergeant. "This is Glass's doing! I wish I'd hung the man last night!"
"Glass didn't come here for that," declared Barnabas. "Waxpenny must have opened the door an' run fur it when he heard the row in yonder; an' where's the sentry?"
Just then a clamor rose from several of the men who had hastened outside. Led by Sergeant Murdock, the rest of the party ran into the yard, and at one side of the door they found the prostrate body of the sentry who had been posted in the middle-room. The man was breathing faintly, and his swollen and purple face showed that he had been nearly strangled to death by a pair of muscular hands.
With shouts of vengeance the crowd scattered in different directions, but a cry from Barnabas brought them together again at the partly-open gate of the stockade. Here lay the second sentry stone dead, with a long knife buried in his ribs.
"If Simon Glass don't die for this may I never shoulder a musket again!" roared the infuriated sergeant. "It was a sharp trick he played. He must have come here a bit ago, persuaded the sentry to admit him, and then stabbed the poor fellow to the heart. Next he enticed the other sentry to the yard, and settled him, too. And after the lad here discovered him in the room both he and the spy darted out the gate."
"But where's the third sentry?" cried Barnabas, "an' who fired that shot—Hark! some one's calling now!"
Indeed, the shouting had been going on at intervals since the first alarm, but owing to the noise and excitement the man had not been able to make himself heard. The sounds came from the rear of the block-house, and thither the whole party ran in haste, to find Private Mickley prancing up and down on one of the lookout platforms.
"Where've you been?" he yelled, hoarsely. "Why didn't you come sooner? I've been keeping watch on the ruffian, but now he's gone—escaped in that big canoe."