had
come.

It was the plan of Skelly to wait in silence and patience a long time.
The defenders would conclude that he and his men had gone away, and then
the mountaineers could either rush the house or set it on fire. If the
final resort was fire, they could easily shoot Colonel Kenton and his
friends as they ran out. It was Skelly who spoke of this hideous plan,
laughing as he spoke, and Harry's hand went instinctively toward the
butt of one of the pistols. But his will made him draw it away again,
and, motionless in the grass, lying flat upon his face, he continued to
listen.

Skelly's plan was accepted and they moved away to tell the others.
Harry rose a little, and crept rapidly through the grass toward the
vegetable garden.

Again he was surprised at his own skill. Acute of ear as he had become
he could scarcely hear the brushing of the grass as he passed. As he
approached the garden he saw two more men, rifles in hand, walking about,
but paying little heed to them he kept on until he lay against the fence
enclosing the garden.

It was a fence of palings, spiked at the top, and climbing it was a
problem. Studying the question for a moment or two he decided that it
was too dangerous to be risked, and moving cautiously along he began
to feel of the palings. At last he came to one that was loose, and he
pulled it entirely free at the bottom. Then he slipped through and into
the garden. Here were long rows of grapevines, fastened on sticks, and,
for a few moments, he lay flat behind one of the rows. He knew that he
was not yet entirely safe, as the mountaineers were keen of eye and ear,
and an outer guard of skirmishers might be lying in the garden itself.
But he was now even keener of eye and hearing than they, and he could
detect nothing living near him. The house also, and all about it,
was silent. Evidently Skelly's men had settled down to a long siege,
and Harry rejoiced in the amount of time they gave him.

He rose to his feet, but, stooped to only half his height, he ran
swiftly behind the row of grapevines to the far end of the garden,
leaped over the fence and continued his rapid flight toward Pendleton,
where the single light still burned. He surmised that his father had
received the warning too late to gather more than a few friends, and
that the rest of the town was yet in deep ignorance.

The first house he reached, the one in which the light burned, was that
of Gardner, the editor,