geant disguised
himself as a countryman, and the young man took a seat in the vehicle.
Then they drove on toward the mill, expecting to meet Fenton on the
road. They were passing a low groggery among the pines, when he came out
of it, pistol in hand, and impudently ordered them to stop.

"They drew rein, and he came nearer, asking if they had brandy with
them. They replied that they had, and handed him a bottle. Then, as he
lifted it to his lips, the sergeant silently signaled to one of his
hidden soldiers, who at once rose from his hiding place in the straw and
shot Fenton through the head. His body was then thrown into the wagon
and carried in triumph to Freehold."

"The people of that part of the country must have felt a good deal
relieved," remarked Rosie. "Still there were Fenton's desperado
companions left."

"Two of them--Fagan and West--shared Fenton's fate, being shot by the
exasperated people," said her mother; "and West's body was hung in
chains, with hoop iron bands around it, on a chestnut tree hard by the
roadside, about a mile from Freehold."

"O Grandma Elsie, is it there yet?" asked Gracie, shuddering with
horror.

"No, dear child, that could hardly be possible after so many years--more
than a hundred you will remember when you think of it," returned Mrs.
Travilla, with a kindly reassuring smile.

"I hope papa will take us to Freehold," said Lulu. "I want to see the
battleground."

"I feel quite sure he will, should nothing happen to prevent," said
Grandma Elsie.

"Wasn't it at Freehold, or in its neighborhood, that a Captain Huddy was
murdered by those pine robbers?" asked Evelyn.

"Yes," replied Grandma Elsie. "It was only the other day that I was
refreshing my memory in regard to it by glancing over Lossing's account
given in his Field Book of the Revolution."

"Then please tell us about it, mamma," pleaded Walter.

"Very willingly, since you wish to hear it," she said, noting the look
of eager interest on the young faces about her.

"Captain Huddy was an ardent patriot and consequently hated by his Tory
neighbors. He lived at a place called Colt's Neck, about five miles from
Freehold.

"One evening, in the summer of 1780, a party of some sixty refugees,
headed by a mulatto named Titus, attacked Huddy's house. There was no
one in it at the time but Huddy himself, and a servant girl, some twenty
years old, named Lucretia Emmons."

"She wouldn't be of much use for fighting men," rema