ned, so Amsterdam Dutchy, that, for all that I
know to the contrary, Achter Kull may have built it as a play-house
for his children when first he came to America and took up his abode
by the Kill van Kull. The Kill van Kull is that curious little slice
of sea pinched in by a finger of New Jersey thrust hard against Staten
Island, as though trying its best to push the island off to sea.
However it may have been, there was the house, and from the very roof
of it arose a head, neck, two shoulders and one arm; the same being
the property of the mother of Valentine and Anna. The said mother was
keeping watch from the scuttle.

"Be quick, my children," she cried. "The Continentals are now driving
off Abraham Rycker's cattle and the boat isn't full yet. They'll be
_here_ next."

Anna seized the clothes line; Valentine made for the bars. Down they
came, the one after the other, and out over the lower one went calf,
Anna and cow. Valentine made a dive for Snow's leading string. He
missed it. Away went the calf, poor Anna clutching at the rope, into
green lane, through tall grass, tangle and thicket. She caught her
foot in her torn gown and was falling, when a sudden holding up of the
rope assisted by Valentine's clutch at her arm set her on her feet
again. During this slight respite from the chase, the cow (Sleet, by
name, because not quite so white as Snow) took a bite of grass and
wondered what all this unaccustomed fuss did mean.

"Snow has pulled my arm out of joint," said Anna, holding fast to her
shoulder.

"Never mind your arm, _now_," returned Valentine. "We must get to the
marsh. It's the only place. You get a switch, and if Sleet won't
follow Snow in, you drive her. I _wish_ the critters wasn't white;
they show up so; but Washington sha'n't have this calf and cow,
_anyhow_."

From Newark Bay to Old Blazing Star Ferry stretched the marsh, deep,
dense, well-nigh impassable. Under the orders of General Washington,
supported by the approval of the Provincial Congress in session at
White Plains, the live stock was being driven from the island, and
ferried across Staten Island Sound to New Jersey. At the same moment
the grand fleet of armed ships from Halifax, England, and elsewhere,
was sailing in with General Howe on board and Red Coats enough to eat,
at a supper and a dinner, all the live stock on a five-by-seventeen
mile island.

Now the Commander-in-chief of the Continental forces at New York did
not wish to af