During this time Tom Deering saw service against the Cherokees and Tories; but the greater part of his time was devoted to trying to find his father. He and Cole used every means in their power to find where the planter had been taken; more than once they assumed the characters of loyalists, when they saw a British ship standing in near shore, and with a boat-load of fresh vegetables they would pull or sail out to her under pretence of desiring to sell the things to the officers. But all their questioning upon these and other occasions went for nothing; no trace was to be had of his father. But Tom was not disheartened; the finding of his father was to be his task, and he persisted in it day after day, week after week; wherever there promised to be a shred of information, there he rode, sailed or walked. But not once in the entire three years did he gain a single clue. Then, suddenly, came the surprise of General Howe at Savannah; the Americans were dispersed and the city fell into the hands of the British. Ten thousand picked troops under Sir Henry Clinton sailed from New York upon Charleston, bringing a train of heavy artillery. Six weeks after the city was invested it fell, and four thousand men were taken prisoners; the command of the British then was given to Lord Cornwallis, and at once the entire colony began to feel the gross abuse of power and wanton tyrannies with which that officer soiled his name. Tom Deering, between his marches in the Cherokee and Tory countries had found much time to attend to the plantation. Nothing had been heard of his father since the day the boat’s crew of the brig-of-war took him from the wrecked sloop, so the whole care of the extensive estate now fell upon the boy. Tom’s mother had died when he was but a child, and he had no brothers or sisters. The only relatives he knew of, in the wide world, other than Captain Deering were the Harwoods, and these, of course, he never saw, as they had not ventured into the neighborhood of Charleston since once taking arms against their neighbors. Tom was now a stalwart, bronzed youth of about nineteen; hard riding had developed him wonderfully in body and constant danger had given him that calm, steady, tried courage that is a soldier’s best gift.