tly, or they would never have allowed him to draw so near
unchallenged.

He was lifting a hand to hammer on the rough door giving entrance
from the rear, when it was flung open and a man in provincial uniform
peered out upon the night.

"Is that you, Captain Chabot?" asked the visitor.

The man in the doorway smothered an exclamation. "The wind was
driving the snow in upon us by the shovelful," he explained.
"We are keeping a sharp enough look-out down the road."

"So I perceived," answered John a Cleeve curtly, and stepped past him
into the _hangar_. About fifty men stood packed there in a steam of
breath around the guns--the most of them Canadians and British
militiamen, with a sprinkling of petticoated sailors.

"Who is working these?" asked John a Cleeve, laying his hand on the
nearest three-pounder.

"Captain Barnsfare." A red-faced seaman stepped forward and saluted
awkwardly: Adam Barnsfare, master of the _Tell_ transport.

"Your crew all right, captain?"

"All right, sir."

"The Governor sends me down with word that he believes the enemy
means business to-night. Where's your artilleryman?"

"Sergeant McQuarters, sir? He stepped down, a moment since, to the
barrier, to keep the sentry awake."

John a Cleeve glanced up at the lamp smoking under the beam.

"You have too much light here," he said. "If McQuarters has the guns
well pointed, you need only one lantern for your lintstocks."

He blew out the candle in his own, and reaching up a hand, lowered
the light until it was all but extinct. As he did so his hood fell
back and the lamp-rays illumined his upturned face for two or three
seconds; a tired face, pinched just now with hard living and
wakefulness, but moulded and firmed by discipline. Fifteen years had
bitten their lines deeply about the under-jaw and streaked the
temples with grey. But they had been years of service; and, whatever
he had missed in them, he had found self-reliance.

He stepped out upon the pent of the _hangar_, and, with another glance
up at the night, plunged into the deep snow, and trudged his way down
to the barricade.

"Sergeant McQuarters!"

"Here sir!" The Highlander saluted in the darkness, "Any word from
up yonder, sir?" A faint glow touched the outline of his face as he
lifted it toward the illuminated citadel.

"The Governor looks for an assault to-night. So you know me,
McQuarters?"

"By your voice, sir," answered McQuarters, and added quaintl