42 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



smell h — 11 right straight away. Here's Archer, and an- 

 other Yorker with him — leastwise an Englisher I should 

 say — and Squire Conklin, and Bill Speers, and that white 

 nigger Jem ! Look sharp, I say ! Look sharp, cus you, 

 else we'll pull off the ruff of the old humstead." 



In a few minutes Sam made his appearance, armed, like 

 the rest, with a Queen Ann's tower-musket. 



"Well! well!" he said, "I'm ready. Quit making such a 

 clatter! Lend me a load of powder, one of you; my 

 horn's leaked dry, I reckon !" 



Tom forthwith handed him his own, and the next thing 

 I heard was Blain exclaiming that it was "desperate pretty 

 powder," and wondered if it shot strong. 



"Shoot strong? I guess you'll find it strong enough to 

 sew you up, if you go charging your old musket that 

 ways!" answered Tom. "By the Lord, Archer, he's put in 

 three full charges !" 



"Well, it will kill him, that's all !" answered Harry, very 

 coolly; "and there'll be one less of you. But come! come! 

 let's be bustling ; the sun's going to get up already. You'll 

 leave your horses here, I suppose, gentlemen, and get to 

 the old stands. Tom Draw, put Mr. Forester at my old, 

 post dowii by the big pin-oak at the creek side; and you 

 stand there, Frank, still as a church-mouse. It's ten to 

 one, if some of those fellows don't shoot him first, that 

 he'll break covert close by you, and run the meadows for 

 a mile or two, up to the turnpike road, and over it to 

 Kocky hill — that black knob yonder, covered with pine and 

 hemlock. There are some queer snake fences in the flat, 

 and a big brook or two, but Peacock has been over every 

 inch of it before, and you may trust in him implicitly. 

 Good bye! I'm going up the road with Jem to drive it 

 from the upper end." 



And off he went at a merry trot, with the hounds 

 gamboling about his stirrups, and Jem Lyn running at 

 his best pace to keep up with him. In a few minutes they 

 were lost behind a swell of woodland, round which the 

 road wheeled suddenly. At the same moment Tom and 

 his companions re-appeared from the stables, where they 

 had been securing their fovir-footed friends; and, after a 

 few seconds, spent in running ramrods down the barrels 

 to see that all was right, inspecting primings, knapping 

 flints, or puttiug on fresh copper caps, it was announced 



