“But,” added the tall man, setting kind, blue eyes on the lad, “this will make a great stir, and you will, I fear, suffer for it when you reach home.” “Yes, sir,” said Tom. “And the twins?” “Twins? What’s this, McLane?” “There were three in the business,” said the Captain. “Indeed. I wish there were as much spirit in the army.” “After all, sir,” said McLane, “what can they do to a mere boy whose horses ran away?” “But how are they to get to the city?” “I will see to that, sir, and let Mrs. Markham know.” “Yes, yes, quite right. Now I must be excused.” He rose and shook hands with Tom, and bowed to the officer. “Come, Tom,” said McLane. Tom made his best bow and they went out into the cold December night. Then Tom asked: “Who was that general?” “Good gracious, my boy, I thought you knew. That was General Washington. He might have thanked you more. But that’s his way.” “I think he said enough, sir.” McLane looked at the young face, now elate and smiling and then quiet in thought. The Lieutenant was waiting in the hut when Tom and the Captain returned. McLane said: “I shall be away for a day or more. Their mother must hear news of these lads. I leave them in your care, Lieutenant.” “Yes, sir.” The Captain said good-bye and was gone for two days. Meanwhile the story was told by the troopers and soon repeated at the campfires, where the men amused themselves mightily with the twins and their narratives. Tom held his tongue, and wandering saw the earthworks, and the ragged soldiers making shoes out of old blankets and plaited straw, or cooking frozen potatoes and decayed pickled herring, and growling over their diet. He saw the army wagons come in with wood, the worn-out traces replaced by grapevines. He saw men on guard relieved every hour for fear of frozen feet, which were shoeless, and more than once a sentry standing on his hat for relief, with feet double wrapped in bits of blanket. He ate of horse beef at their fires or rode proudly at the head of McLane troops down the hill and into the lines of General Greene’s brigades. The twins, too, kept him busy. They climbed with him the slope of Mount Misery and saw the bridge over the Schuylkill, and on the posts which supported it burned in the names of favorite generals--Washington, Putnam, Greene, and Lafayette. Once Harry, in delicious fear, was allowed to touch off the evening gun. At dusk on December twenty-eighth the lads found McLane again in his hut. “Hurrah, boys,” he cried, “I have a bag of flour, four sausages, and an aged hen. Let’s make slapjacks. After we have fed I have a story.”