ithout chance of helpin' him. I've heard
long-tongued boasters tellin' how they'd rescued a prisoner from an Indian
camp, but I never believed anything of the kind, for it ain't to be done
more'n one time in a thousand, an' then you'd have to find a lot of
red-skinned idjuts to work on."

Sergeant Corney had used a good many words in replying to my short
question, and I believed he had done so to the end that I might not fully
understand what he meant.

As I made it out, however, he would turn his back on poor Jacob in case
the savages had him in their power, and I asked myself again and again
what course I should pursue in such a situation.

We made a long detour around the battle-field in order to avoid as much as
possible the danger of stumbling upon the enemy's scouts, and, when the
afternoon was half-spent, had come, as nearly as we could guess, to a
point due south from Thayendanega's camp.

"How far do you reckon we are from St. Leger's force?" I asked, when
Sergeant Corney threw himself on the ground within shelter of a clump of
bushes, as if for a long halt.

"Three miles or more from their lines of sentinels, if they've got any
out, an' we're none too far away, 'cordin' to my figgerin'. After sunset
we'll work in toward 'em; but there needn't be any hurry, for I'm
reckonin' that we don't want to do much work till after midnight. If Jacob
is still free to do as he pleases, there's little danger he'll come to
grief 'twixt now an' mornin'."

"Unless he should see them torturin' his father, an' then it's certain
he'd make a fight, no matter how great the odds against him," I suggested,
thinking of what I would be tempted to do under similar circumstances.

"In that case we're better off where we are. I don't allow that a lad has
any right to deliberately throw away his own life, an' that's what Jacob
would be doin' if he showed himself when the villains had his father at
the stake."

"He couldn't stand still an' see it done."

"True for you; but, no matter how he might feel, it's his duty to think of
his mother, an' surely she would say that it was better one came home,
than for both to be killed."

"It's a mighty hard outlook," I said, with a sigh.

"You're right, an' at the same time you ain't makin' matters any better by
chewin' it over. A man don't fit himself for a fight by figgerin' out all
the possible horrors."

"An' you think we'll have a fight before this venture is ended?"

"I'll leave i