hall be very glad to go there," simply.

"My mother and sister and the lieutenant's parents and sister live
there, besides many of the boys' families, and it will be no difficult
matter to get you all the work you can do, and work for your mother as
well. It will be a better place to live than the city, and you will be
in no danger from your father."

"I would like a place like that," said Tom. "It would be better for all
of us!"

"Then I will make arrangements for your mother and the children to go up
there at once and you can follow shortly. The enemy will eventually get
possession of the city, and you will be better off out of it than in it.

"I will get ready as soon as you say, Captain," shortly.

"Then I think you had better not delay, for I believe that it is a
matter of a few days only, perhaps not more than one, when the enemy
will be in possession."

The boy then went away, and in half an hour Alice and Edith came to the
camp, and Dick told them about Tom and his mother.

"I think you had better return shortly, Alice," he added, "and take the
boy's mother and the little children with you. Tom will very soon
establish himself when he gets there and will be much better off than in
New York."

The girls were ready to go very shortly, for the evidences of the
enemy's preparations to seize the city were more and more visible. One
or two ships had gone up the East River the previous night, and the
ships were all much nearer to the city than they had been the day
before. After Alice and Edith had gone, Dick and Bob went down to the
lower end of the city to investigate, and found one or two ships at
Governor's Island, just opposite, the people in the lower sections being
in a state of considerable anxiety.

"That looks as if there might be something going on in a short time,"
muttered Bob.

"I think so myself, and I am glad that I suggested to the girls that
they had better leave. The British are getting ready to invade the city,
and we don't know how soon they may attack us on all sides."

"Then we will all have to get out or else be obliged to run the
blockade."

"Exactly, and we must learn all we can of Howe's moves."

During the afternoon Tom came to the camp with his mother and the little
children, reporting that his father had not been seen since the night
before, and that he thought the man feared arrest and had fled or was in
hiding in some of the lower quarters of the city. Dick obtained a hor