"Provision boats from Buffalo," Percy answered instantly, and so they passed. Across Niagara River twinkled the lights of Buffalo and Black Rock, and before them three ships laden with stores, loomed up dark as they lay at anchor. The first was boarded with a savage rush of excited men. In five minutes she was mastered, and scudding out into Erie, keeping the other ships between her and the guns of the fort till she was out of range. At dawn the prize was lying in a little bay. She had landed part of the men, including Ned and the Indians, with a good portion of her cargo of flour, when the 10-gun "Hunter", one of the British war-fleet on Erie, came up. She was to take the boat and part of the stores to Detroit, that one bit of American soil to which Canada was clinging. She felt that she was not quite conquered while she held it, though her garrison there were very short of food. So the war went on that summer, until it was September; and on Friday, the tenth of that month--a day to be marked in American histories--Betty sat in Susie's best room, feeling depressed. Susie was with her, but both women were silent, thinking of their husbands. Susie knew that Edgar had escaped, had got to Detroit, and then had heard no more, and so she worked and suffered as thousands of brave women did in that olden war. She had herself and her children to keep on what she could get from her garden and cows and poultry, for there was no possibility of getting food from outside. The Americans, honourable invaders all, though they knew the women in the country they occupied must be continually sending information to the men in the bush, yet would not punish the captive but unconquered, towns and villages. They had only burnt and plundered buildings owned by the government. But to Susie and Bettie, and many other women, the worst was the impossibility of knowing even if their men folk were living or dead. * * * One day Chloe was at the door beaming on them; a small ship had managed to run in from Kingston; her lading was ammunition for the men at the west end of the lake, but she had left a bundle of mail, and a woman in Quaker-like dress, at York. It was Mrs. Ferguson, who had just made the risky journey from Montreal, and she brought a note from Percy to his wife, asking Betty to keep her with herself, till his commanders would allow women to come where he and the others were fighting. Betty welcomed her warmly, overjoyed to hear from her husband, and know him alive somewhere--though his letter had run the blockade to Montreal, and back again as far as York, before it reached her. She had sent letters by the same boat, hoping he would get them.