"You may as well give in quietly," the old man said, tightening his grasp until it would have been impossible for the man to make the lightest outcry. "If you flounder about much all hands will go into the water, an' once there I give my word that you won't come to the surface, for we don't count on losin' you the second time." The scoundrel was as meek as any lamb, and when Darius told me to fasten his arms together with my belt, he held them out obediently. I took a double turn around his elbows, and Darius ordered him to step into our canoe, which he did without hesitation, but once there, seated on the flooring of the boat with his back against the old man's knees, he glowered at us like an angry cat. "We reckoned you wanted to see Barney's fleet, when you put off from Benedict, an' it ain't jest right to make you paddle a heavy canoe so far," Darius said grimly. "You're goin' back with us, Master Macomber, an' this time you'll stay." "Not very long," the reptile said with a snarl. "Admiral Cochrane declares that he'll destroy Barney's fleet Friday, an' dine in Washington Sunday. So you see I'm not likely to stay with you any great while after the British come up the river." "That is as may be; now I'm countin' that when your admiral gets as far up the river as Nottingham, if he ever does, you'll be somewhere else, for we've taken you in charge." "My time will come, an' then I'll pay off a good many old scores," Macomber cried with a look on his face which was not pleasant to see. "If it does you any good, keep right on thinkin' so," Darius replied mildly, "an' in the meantime we'll keep our eyes on you. Give way, lads, the sooner we're with the fleet now, the better it will be." We had no more than settled well to work when Darius ordered us to cease paddling, as he half rose to peer steadily ahead, and, quite naturally, all of us glanced in the same direction. A canoe carrying four men was coming down stream, and while I was asking myself if we might not have come upon more British spies, the old man settled back with a sigh of relief. "It's the Byard boys goin' home," he announced, and then, as the other canoe came within hail, he gave them information of what was happening at Benedict. "It don't look as if we'd better go back there," Sam Byard said thoughtfully when Darius had come to an end of his news. "I reckon the Britishers might make trouble for us, eh?" "They'd be apt to if it was known you'd just come from our fleet," the old man replied with a laugh. "The best thing you can do is to turn around an' follow us. Did you get your money?" "Oh yes, the commodore handed that over all right." "Where is Jim Freeman?" I asked. "The commander allowed it wouldn't be many hours before all hands of you came back, so he went aboard the pungy to keep ship."