to be losing interest in the struggle.”

The round-faced youth smiled widely at this.

“If they don’t come forward,” said he, “they’ll find themselves worse off than before. The British are swarming over seas, I’ve heard. The stories of the mess-rooms have the Atlantic black with frigates and three-deckers of the line.”

[140]“It’s very likely not as bad as Ben paints it,” said young Brewster, “but at the same time there is good cause for alarm. Nothing is known of the expedition that sailed from Boston under Sir Henry Clinton before the evacuation. It’s a formidable force, capable of striking a crippling blow; and then the army under Howe must be hovering somewhere within easy sailing distance. To meet this and the forces which the ministers at London must now be fitting out against us, General Washington must greatly increase his force.”

[140]

“Night and day he’s at it,” said Ben Cooper, in high admiration; “you never saw such a man to work. But the recruits come in like snails. They somehow seem to dread to leave their own states. Just as though,” in disgust, “there were any more danger upon one side of a boundary line than there is on another.”

After George had delivered his dispatches and dined, his brother Ezra, more astonishingly his counterpart than ever before, broke in upon him tumultuously. And after they had exchanged experiences, George related[141] his queer encounters with Herbert Camp and his sister in New York.

[141]

“A traitor,” said Ezra, aghast.

“There can be no doubt about it,” said George. “A traitor, bought by the prospects of the old man’s fortune.”

They sat for a long time in silence; then Ezra laid his hand upon his brother’s arm.

“I am glad,” said he, “that you asked General Putnam’s permission to withdraw. Herbert Camp will be taken in the end, but neither you nor I must have a hand in it.”

George was next day assigned, together with his brother and two friends, to service under General Knox in transporting the artillery, and in this work he labored for some days until the heavy guns of Washington’s force were safely stowed in the vessels that were to carry them to New York.

It was on April 

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