great adventure.

"Binkus, what's the trouble here?" the latter asked, as the crowd who
had followed the two scouts gathered about them.

Solomon gave his account of what had happened. It was quickly verified
by many eye-witnesses.

"Ye done right," said the General. "Burley has got to take it back an'
apologize. He ain't fit to be an officer. He behaved himself like a
bully. Any man who talks as he done orto be cussed an' Binkussed an'
sent to the guard house."

Within three days Burley had made an ample apology for his conduct and
this bulletin was posted at headquarters:

"Liberty of speech has its limits. It must be controlled by the law of
decency and the general purposes of our army and government. The man
who respects no authority above his own intellect is a conceited ass
and would be a tyrant if he had the chance. No word of disrespect for
a superior officer will be tolerated in this army."

"The Binkussing of Burley"--a phrase which traveled far beyond the
limits of Putnam's camp--and the notice of warning which followed was
not without its effect on the propaganda of Gates and his friends.

2

Next day Jack and Solomon set out with a force of twelve hundred men
for Washington's camp at White Marsh near Philadelphia. There Jack
found a letter from Margaret. It had been sent first to Benjamin
Franklin in Paris through the latter's friend Mr. David Hartley, a
distinguished Englishman who was now and then sounding the Doctor on
the subject of peace.

"I am sure that you will be glad to know that my love for you is not
growing feeble on account of its age," she wrote. "The thought has
come to me that I am England and that you are America. It will be a
wonderful and beautiful thing if through all this bitterness and
bloodshed we can keep our love for each other. My dear, I would have
you know that in spite of this alien King and his followers, I hold to
my love for you and am waiting with that patience which God has put in
the soul of your race and mine, for the end of our troubles. If you
could come to France I would try to meet you in Doctor Franklin's home
at Passy. So I have the hope in me that you may be sent to France."

This is as much of the letter as can claim admission to our history.
It gave the young man a supply of happiness sufficient to fill the many
days of hardship and peril in the winter at Valley Forge. It was read
to Solomon.

"Say, this 'ere letter kind o' te