se!" said a boy as he threw a snowball.

Losing his temper, the informer threw a brickbat in return. He was but
one against fifty lads pelting him with snowballs, which knocked off
his hat, struck him in the face, compelling him to flee, the jeering
boys following him to his own home.

Tom Brandon accompanied the boys. He saw the informer raise a window.
There was a flash, a puff of smoke, the report of a gun, a shriek, and
two of the boys were lying upon the ground and their blood spurting
upon the snow. He helped carry them into a house, and then ran for
Doctor Warren. It was but a few steps. The doctor came in haste.

"Samuel Gore is not much injured, but Christopher Snider is mortally
wounded," he said.

Christ Church bells were ringing. Merchants were closing their stores;
blacksmiths leaving their forges; carpenters throwing down their
tools,--everybody hastening with buckets and ladders to put out the
fire, finding instead the blood-stained snow and wounded schoolboys.

"Hang him! Hang him!" shouted the apprentices and journeymen. But the
sheriff had the culprit in his keeping, and the law in its majesty was
guarding him from the violence of the angered people.

"Christopher Snider is dead," said Doctor Warren, as he came from the
house into which the boy had been carried by Tom Brandon and those who
assisted him.

Thenceforth the widow's home in Frog Lane would be desolate, for an
only child was gone.

An exasperated multitude, among others Tom Brandon and Robert Walden,
gathered in Faneuil Hall, Tom as witness, attending the examination of
Ebenezer Richardson,[40] charged with the murder of Christopher
Snider. Upon the platform sat the justices, John Ruddock, Edmund
Quincy, Richard Dana, and Samuel Pemberton, wearing their scarlet
cloaks and white wigs. There was a murmuring of voices.

[Footnote 40: John Ruddock, Edmund Quincy, Richard Dana, and Samuel
Pemberton were the principal magistrates of the town, and unitedly sat
as a court. Richardson was committed to jail, tried, and condemned to
death. As his crime grew from political troubles, Governor Hutchinson
caused his execution to be delayed. He was kept in jail till the
outbreak of the war, when he was set at liberty.]

"I hope the spy will swing for it," Robert heard one citizen say.

"It's downright murder, this shooting of a boy only nine years old,
who hadn't even been teasing Poke Nose," said another.

"This is what comes from customs nab