mp."

"Have I slept long?" asked Eben.

"Well, now, I can't say 'zactly, for I reckon you had been asleep a
long time when I found you, and I've been here nigh on to ten hours."

"You have been watching me that long? Why?"

"Mebbe I took a fancy to you, and mebbe I know you."

"You know me?"

"Well, now, I reckon if I were to call you Ebenezer Pike----"

"If you did?"

"Yes, I was saying I reckon that you would have to say that was your
name."

"What gave you that idea? And who is Ebenezer Pike?"

"I am no tory. Yesterday I heard that a prisoner had escaped from the
war ship out there, and that the one who had got away was at the bottom
of the sea. I was curious, and I asked all about it. Then I was asked
if a body wouldn't float into land; and I said mebbe; and then the
bluejacket told me he would give me ten shillings if I found the body
and gave it up to him. So I searched and found--you."

"And discovered that I was not worth ten shillings?"

"Never mind what I found; I tell you I ain't no tory, and ten pounds,
nor ten hundred pounds, would make me give up a live American hero.
His dead body wouldn't be of no account to him, so I might give up
that."

"And you think I am this escaped prisoner! Well, what do you want to
do with me? for I am too weak to oppose your silly whim."

"I am going to take you to my house, and when you get strong you shall
go just where you please."

"You mean this?"

"I do; and I tell you that if we could liberate Col. Ethan Allen we
would, for he is wanted just now; Carolina means to be free and
independent, so it does."

Eben did not attempt any resistance; in fact, he was too weak to oppose
his discoverer, so he allowed himself to be lifted on the man's
shoulder and be carried to a cabin on the other side of the wood.

Here he was tended as well as if he had been among relatives or his
friends of the Green Mountains.

After a few days he was strong enough to go out, and he walked down to
the beach and saw the vessel from which he had escaped lying at anchor.

But he saw something more--something which made his blood run cold.

As he was returning he saw five trees growing on the banks of the river
near the cape, and from each tree there dangled a human body.

On closer inspection he found--what he had dreaded to find--that the
bodies were those of some of his fellow prisoners.

"Come away, my boy," said his new friend. "Those men gave their lives
for