committee of girls went
from house to house reenlisting the boys. So here they are, and
Washington has an army, such as it is."

4

Soon after that the daring spirit of the youth led him into a great
adventure. It was on the night of January fifth that Jack penetrated
the British lines in a snow-storm and got close to an outpost in a
strip of forest. There a camp-fire was burning. He came close. His
garments had been whitened by the storm. The air was thick with snow,
his feet were muffled in a foot of it. He sat by a stump scarcely
twenty feet from the fire, seeing those in its light, but quite
invisible. There he could distinctly hear the talk of the Britishers.
It related to a proposed evacuation of the city by Howe.

"I'm weary of starving to death in this God-forsaken place," said one
of them. "You can't keep an army without meat or vegetables. I've
eaten fish till I'm getting scales on me."

"Colonel Riffington says that the army will leave here within a
fortnight," another observed.

It was important information which had come to the ear of the young
scout. The talk was that of well bred Englishmen who were probably
officers.

"We ought not to speak of those matters aloud," one of them remarked.
"Some damned Yankee may be listening like the one we captured."

"He was Amherst's old scout," said another. "He swore a blue streak
when we shoved him into jail. They don't like to be treated like
rebels. They want to be prisoners of war."

"I don't know why they shouldn't," another answered. "If this isn't a
war, I never saw one. There are twenty thousand men under arms across
the river and they've got us nailed in here tighter than a drum. They
used to say in London that the rebellion was a teapot tempest and that
a thousand grenadiers could march to the Alleghanies in a week and
subdue the country on the way. You are aware of how far we have
marched from the sea. It's just about to where we are now. We've gone
about five miles in eight months. How many hundreds of years will pass
before we reach the Alleghanies? But old Gage will tell you that it
isn't a war."

A young man came along with his rifle on his shoulder.

"Hello, Bill!" said one of the men. "Going out on post?"

"I am, God help me," the youth answered. "It's what I'd call a hell of
a night."

The sentinel passed close by Jack on his way to his post. The latter
crept away and followed, gradually closing in upon hi