n's cub down a bit further back. Lord! how the fellow strutted, and
when I called to him he started like a stuck pig. I cannot forget the
look on his face as--as I fired.

"I'm agreeing with you, Martin, clean fighting or nothing. I'm not up to
this slaughtering of infants myself. I half expect to see that baby
playing in the moonlight every time a leaf rustles at night." The man
laughed uneasily. "Once I fancied I saw a face--a pale boy-face--shining
in the bushes. Lord, it gave me a turn!"

"Could there be a secret passage?" asked Martin in a low voice. "A
fellow named Godkin told me an hour ago that he had his eye on a lame
chap and a gawk of a schoolmaster who were always skulking around close
to the ground. He says the boy lives hereabouts and knows the woods like
a snake."

"No fool rebel could keep such a secret from me. Godkin likes to talk
and swagger. He feels his oats. Come, just to pass the time, let's beat
the bushes."

"Back out!" breathed Andy. There was no time to be lost. But the
backward movement was most painfully slow. The men tramping in the
bushes, feeling the thing but child-play, laughed and talked loudly.

"How many men has the old fox!" asked Martin, giving a cut to the bushes
with his gun.

"Twelve thousand, though he gives out many more."

"He's got grit," rejoined Martin, "with my lord gripping his throat at
close quarters with double that number at his heels, to stand still and
calm as--as this rock! Gad, I nearly broke my gun! This land produces
more rocks than anything else. I heard Washington is planning to get on
Long Island again."

"He'll never get there. My Lord Howe--what in thunder!" Norton had
slipped and fallen, and as he lay so, his face was on a level with the
opening in the rocks!

"Come here!" he gasped. "Got a light! There's a hole here."

Martin struck a light and peered in. As he did so Andy's white,
horrified face gleamed forth from the shadow. Without a word the head
was withdrawn, and both Andy and the master knew that the man, or both
men, would follow at once.

"They are big!" moaned Andy, "and they do not know the way as we do. Oh,
hurry!"

The master feared that the sentinel would fire into the cave, but as the
moment passed, and he did not, he took heart, and crept backward as fast
as he could. Then came the sure sound of the chase. One or both had
entered the passage! They had this advantage; they could come straight
on, while the pursued were goin