ly needed us for
some important task.

"You have done well to get back alive!" he cried, with a laugh. "It is
pleasing to know that lads can do what many of their elders would balk at.
So Colonel Campbell was willing to give you up to me?"

[Illustration: "'You have done well to get back alive!'"]

"He made no protest, sir," I replied, after waiting an instant for one of
my companions to act the part of spokesman. "An hundred and fifty soldiers
are quartered at Cherry Valley, and they, with the many who have made of
the settlement a place of refuge, are in such numbers that three would
neither be needed or missed."

"That would depend on what stuff the three were made, according to my way
of thinking. I have some work here which you can do better than any one
else of whom I know, and the only question is whether you are willing to
lay your shoulders to the wheel when there's a good bit of danger in so
doing?"

"We have come, sir, to do whatsoever offered, an' if the task which you
have in mind could be performed with safety, then we might as well have
stayed at home," I replied, and Sergeant Corney nodded to show that we
were of one mind.

"Since I last saw you the enemy has gathered in strong force about Fort
Schuyler, and it is necessary we get some word to the commandant, who is,
in fact, besieged."

"That shouldn't be sich a terrible hard job, sir," Sergeant Corney said,
speaking for the first time since we were received by the general.

"True for you, but the reason why I haven't sent any of my own men before
this is, that if the messenger should be discovered while trying to get
inside, Joseph Brant would know for a certainty that we on the outside
believed the garrison to be hard pressed, which would probably work no end
of mischief, for at present the enemy has every reason to suppose Colonel
Gansevoort has all the men and stores he can possibly need."

"Why should he think differently if one of us was captured while tryin' to
communicate with the besieged, sir?" Sergeant Corney asked, curiously.

"Because you have every reason for going there, even though you had never
heard that the fort was invested."

I could not repress a look of surprise, for it was much as if the general
was speaking in riddles, and, seeing the question on my face, he
continued:

"It is only natural that you from Cherry Valley should be searching for
Peter Sitz, and the Indians, in case you were captured, would perforce
bel