l. It was
at this moment that one of the carronades sent its rain of buckshot into
the thick of the British sailors and completed the rout.

Instantly they had boarded, Jack, swinging his hatchet, looked about for
his father, and pressed forward to his side, though the Colonel did not
see him, thinking him at home watching with his mother. When Captain
Askew made the dash from the cabin the two leaders instinctively knew
each other and crossed blades, for Colonel Lockett had snatched a
cutlass from a fallen sailor. They cut and parried fiercely on the
half-lit deck for a few moments, when the Colonel's foot slipped on the
wet wood. That second would have been his last, but Jack's uplifted
hatchet fell like lightning on Captain Askew's shoulder, and smote him
flat to the deck. With this the battle was ended.

Colonel Lockett looked on the lad's panting flushed face with amazement.
"Why, Jack, I ordered you not to come. What does this mean? You deserve
a good horsewhip-- Why, Jack, Jack, you disobedient young villain,
you've saved your father's life!" and with tears rolling down his face
he clasped the brave lad in his arms. The _Tartar_ was taken up to New
Haven, and the Captain, who was only severely wounded, with the other
prisoners, delivered over to the Continental officer in charge of the
post.

When Colonel Lockett returned to Valley Forge, which he did without
delay, Washington thanked him in general orders for his brave feat. Jack
got his heart's wish, and the last year of the war actually served on
the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, young as he was.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] During the Revolution there were gangs of ruffians, little less than
bandits, who spread terror through the region adjacent the field
occupied by the armies. Within a radius of twenty miles from New York,
then in possession of the British, these bands were dubbed Cowboys and
Skinners, the first nominally Tories, the others Patriots, both
outcasts, whose only thought was plunder.

QUILL-PEN, ESQUIRE, ARTIST.

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.

Jimmieboy had been looking at the picture-books in his papa's library
nearly all the afternoon, and as night came on he fell to wondering why
he couldn't draw pictures himself. It certainly seemed easy enough, to
look at the pictures. Most of them were made with the fewest possible
lines, and every line was as simple as could be; the only thing seemed
to be to put them down, and in the right place.