tisfy the curiosity and interest of his neighbors in the
Westminster trouble. Letters from Boston had roused them to the highest
pitch, too. Nor were his mother and Bryce any less anxious to hear and
discuss the news. Mistress Harding had lived within a few miles of
Boston and felt a deep interest still in the people and the affairs of
the Massachusetts Colony. That a foreign soldiery should have been
landed on her shores fired even this good and gentle woman with anger,
and when Bryce said he'd go to Boston, too, along with Lot Breckenridge,
if there was war, she did not say him nay.

But the Hardings had little time to waste upon politics. The boys had to
drop the drilling soon, too, for it came ploughing and seed time. 'Siah
Bolderwood remained about the settlement rather later than usual that
year; and mainly for the reason that public affairs were so strained. He
said his own crop of corn which he intended putting into the lot near
Old Ti upon which he "had let the light of day" could wait a bit, under
the circumstances, for there might be occasion to "beat his ploughshare
into a sword" before corn-planting time.

Therefore he was still with the Hardings that day late in April when
Ethan Allen, riding out of Bennington into the north to carry a torch
which should fire every farm and hamlet with patriotic fervor, reined in
his steed at the door of the farmhouse. The children saw the great man
coming and ran from the fields with Bolderwood, while the widow appeared
at her door and welcomed Colonel Allen.

"Will you 'light, sir?" she asked him. "It has been long since you
favored us with a visit."

"And long will it be ere I come again, perhaps, Mistress Harding. I am
like Sampson--I have taken an oath. And mine is not to rest, nor to give
this critter rest, until I have spoken to as many true men in these
Grants as may be seen in a week. The time has come to act!"

"Reckon I'd better be joggin' erlong toward Old Ti, heh, Colonel?"
remarked the ranger, leaning an elbow on the pommel of the saddle.

"You had, 'Siah, you had. We can depend upon you, and those red-coated
rascals there must be kept unsuspicious and their fears--if they have
any--lulled to sleep. I have one man already who proposes to put his
head in the Lion's mouth and return--providing the jaws do not close on
him--to tell us in what state the old pile of stone is kept."

"But what has started you out so suddenly, Colonel Allen?" demanded the
wid