ston by post chaise to Deal, with Solomon's luggage.
Preston had also engaged the celebrated surgeon, Doctor Brooks, to
spend the night with them so that he would be sure to be on hand in the
morning. The doctor had officiated at no less than a dozen duels and
enjoyed these affairs so keenly that he was glad to give his help
without a fee. The party had gone out in the saddle because Preston
had said that the horses might be useful.

So, having discussed the perils of the immediate future, they had done
all it was in their power to do to prepare for them. Late that evening
the General and his son and four other gentlemen arrived at The Rose
and Garter. Certain of them had spent the afternoon in the
neighborhood shooting birds and rabbits.

Solomon got Jack to bed early and sat for a time in their room
tinkering with the pistols. When the locks were working "right," as he
put it, he polished their grips and barrels.

"Now I reckon they'll speak out when ye pull the trigger," he said to
Jack. "An' yer eyesight 'll skate erlong easy on the top o' them
bar'ls."

"It's a miserable kind of business," said the young man, who was lying
in bed and looking at his friend. "We Americans have a rather hard
time of it, I say. Life is a fight from beginning to end. We have had
to fight with the wilderness for our land and with the Indians and the
French for our lives, and now the British come along and tell us what
we must and mustn't do and burn up our houses."

"An' spit on us an' talk as if we was a lot o' boar pigs," said
Solomon. "But ol' Jeff tol' me 'twere the King an' his crowd that was
makin' all the trouble."

"Well, the King and his army can make us trouble enough," Jack
answered. "It's as necessary for an American to know how to fight as
to know how to walk."

"Now ye stop worryin' an' go to sleep 'er I'll take ye crost my knee,"
said Solomon. "They ain't goin' to be no great damage done, not if ye
do as I tell ye. I've been an' looked the ground over an' if we have
to leg it, I know which way to go."

Solomon had heard from Preston that evening that the Lieutenant was the
best pistol shot in his regiment, but he kept the gossip to himself,
knowing it would not improve the aim of his young friend. But Solomon
was made uneasy by this report.

"My boy kin throw a bullet straight as a plumb line an' quick as
lightnin'," he had said to Preston. "It's as nat'ral fer him as
drawin' his breath. That er