the Avenger had an
easy time of it.

Jim took it upon himself to get supper, and he had brought with him
such a tempting store of provisions, all of which he turned over to
the party, that our meal that night was a veritable feast. I had never
but once before had such an appetizing repast, and that one exception
was when oysters were scarce, and a Baltimore dealer gave us a dinner
at the hotel in addition to the regular price of the cargo.

When our hunger had been satisfied, and the cuddy put to rights, we
lads would have spent the time spinning yarns, or in some other such
amusement; but Darius put his foot down strongly against it.

"Remember that you are liable to be made prisoners of war at any
moment," he said gravely. "Wise men do not hide themselves and their
vessel, an' then talk and laugh that strangers may know where they are
hidden."

"Do you really expect to see Britishers on the river this night?" Jim
Freeman asked with a laugh, and, much to my surprise, the old man said
emphatically:

"I surely do, if all we heard at Benedict be true, an' I have little
doubt of it. The enemy count on destroyin' Commodore Barney's fleet,
an' know that it can be found up this stream. It will be strange,
'cordin' to what I know of such business, if the admiral does not send
out spies before shovin' any armed vessels up here."

It can well be supposed that such talk as this insured silence among
us; we had hardly begun to understand that we might be very near a
British prison unless every precaution was taken; but the old man's
words, and manner of speaking them, brought us to a better
realization of the situation.

We almost held our breath, fancying the enemy might be close aboard,
until Darius, talking in a whisper, said:

"I'm countin' on seein' or hearin' the Britishers 'twixt now an'
mornin', an' it strikes me that we might do a good stroke of work for
Joshua Barney, by lookin' after a prisoner or two. It wouldn't be no
ways strange if we could nab 'em, pervidin' they put themselves in a
fair position to be taken."

I was dumfounded by such a proposition, and it is not impossible that
my knees began to shake as I thought of attempting such a thing. Then
I suddenly remembered that we had no weapons aboard, except an old
musket which we used to shoot into a flock of ducks now and then, and
I said with a laugh:

"Do you expect that the Britishers will surrender if we simply invite
them? Our one musket wouldn'