eathe wherever the road was broken by
ascents. At last he drew up, for a moment, upon an eminence which
gave, by daylight, a wide view of country. Much of this expanse being
clear of timber, and clad in snow, it yielded something to a
night-accustomed eye, despite the darkness. A low, far-off, steady,
snow-muffled beating, which had imperceptibly begun to play on
Winwood's ear, indicated a particular direction for his gaze.
Straining his senses, he looked.

Against the dusky-white background of snow, he could make out an
indistinct, irregular, undulating line of moving dark objects. He
recognised this appearance as the night aspect of a distant band of
horsemen. They were travelling in a line parallel to his own.
Presently, he knew, they would turn toward him, and change their
linear appearance to that of a compact mass. But he waited not for
that. He gently bade his horse go on, and presently he turned straight
for the camp, having a good lead of the horsemen.

He was passing a little copse at his right hand, when suddenly a dark
figure stepped from behind a tree into the road before him. Thinking
this was a soldier on picket duty, he recollected the word of the
night, and reined in to give it upon demand. But the man, having
viewed him as well as the darkness allowed, seemed to realise having
made a mistake, and, as suddenly as he had appeared, stalked back into
the wood.

"What does this mean?" thought Philip; and then he remembered what
Margaret had said of treachery. Was this mysterious night-walker a
traitor posted there to aid the British to their object?

"Stop or I'll shoot you down!" cried Philip, remembering too late that
he had parted with both his pistols at the Bowery lane guard-house.

But the noise of the man's retreat through the undergrowth told that
he was willing to risk a shot.

Philip knew the importance of obtaining a clue to the traitors. The
rebels had suffered considerably from treachery on their own side; had
been in much danger from the treason of Doctor Church at Boston; had
owed the speedier loss of their Fort Washington to that of Dumont; and
(many of them held) the retreat which Washington checked at Monmouth,
to the design of their General Charles Lee. So the capture of this
man, apart from its possible effect upon the present business, might
lead to the unearthing of a nest of traitors likely at some future
time, if not to-night, to menace the rebel cause.

Philip leaped from h