Soon after that the daring spirit of the youth led him into a great adventure. It was on the night of January fifth that Jack penetrated the British lines in a snow-storm and got close to an outpost in a strip of forest. There a camp-fire was burning. He came close. His garments had been whitened by the storm. The air was thick with snow, his feet were muffled in a foot of it. He sat by a stump scarcely twenty feet from the fire, seeing those in its light, but quite invisible. There he could distinctly hear the talk of the Britishers. It related to a proposed evacuation of the city by Howe. "I'm weary of starving to death in this God-forsaken place," said one of them. "You can't keep an army without meat or vegetables. I've eaten fish till I'm getting scales on me." "Colonel Riffington says that the army will leave here within a fortnight," another observed. It was important information which had come to the ear of the young scout. The talk was that of well bred Englishmen who were probably officers. "We ought not to speak of those matters aloud," one of them remarked. "Some damned Yankee may be listening like the one we captured." "He was Amherst's old scout," said another. "He swore a blue streak when we shoved him into jail. They don't like to be treated like rebels. They want to be prisoners of war." "I don't know why they shouldn't," another answered. "If this isn't a war, I never saw one. There are twenty thousand men under arms across the river and they've got us nailed in here tighter than a drum. They used to say in London that the rebellion was a teapot tempest and that a thousand grenadiers could march to the Alleghanies in a week and subdue the country on the way. You are aware of how far we have marched from the sea. It's just about to where we are now. We've gone about five miles in eight months. How many hundreds of years will pass before we reach the Alleghanies? But old Gage will tell you that it isn't a war." A young man came along with his rifle on his shoulder. "Hello, Bill!" said one of the men. "Going out on post?" "I am, God help me," the youth answered. "It's what I'd call a hell of a night." The sentinel passed close by Jack on his way to his post. The latter crept away and followed, gradually closing in upon his quarry. When they were well away from the fire, Jack came close and called, "Bill." The sentinel stopped and faced about. "You've forgotten something," said Jack, in a genial tone. "What is it?" "Your caution," Jack answered, with his pistol against the breast of his enemy. "I shall have to kill you if you call or fail to obey me. Give me the rifle and go on ahead. When I say gee go to the right, haw to the left." So the capture was made, and on the way out Jack picked up the sentinel who stood waiting to be relieved and took both men into camp.