“You say Major Lee has a force in hiding across the river. Good; we’ll slip out of this, one at a time, scud for the river, and steal a boat. When we find the major, I shall beg him to lend me a dozen of his men. If he will do it--and you know him better than I do--we’ll steal another boat and come back.” Champe’s dark eyes were blazing. “And we’ll sack the house and take the traitor in his bed!” he exclaimed. “Captain Dick, if you can put that through, I’ll lie down and let you walk on me for that neck-wringing I gave you a few minutes back.” “Never mind the choking-match, Jack Champe; get you out of here, and wait for me in the street. I’ll join you when I’ve pieced my clothes together on me,” I said; and so it was settled. I found Champe waiting when I had sneaked out of the tavern so quietly, I hoped, as to make my going pass unnoticed. Together we sought the river bank, and craftily dodging a sleepy sentinel, crept down to the water’s edge. Luck was with us this time, for before we had gone a dozen paces along the shore we came upon a small boat riding by a long chain, and, searching in likely hiding-places under the overhanging bank, we found the oars. Pieces of my torn waistcoat answered for the muffling; and in the next passing of the sleepy sentry on the bank above, we pushed off and rowed lustily for the opposite shore. But that one piece of good luck in finding the boat and getting off unseen exhausted our allotment for the night. Champe’s two confederates, the one who had been with him in the garden, and the other who had been standing guard at the river’s edge, had both disappeared and we knew not where to look for them. In due time we made a landing on the Jersey side; whereupon we became as helpless as a pair of babes in the wood. We had no more idea where to look for Major Lee and his troopers than we should have had if we had been born blind, the third man in Champe’s plot, the river-edge watcher who was to signal to the _Nancy Jane’s_ dinghy, and who was afterward to guide the captors, being the only one who knew. None the less, we sought and searched, as those who have lost their all, using the time recklessly in exploring every stretch of woodland we could locate in the darkness, and even going so far as to inquire when we found any one stirring at any of the isolated farm houses. It was just before day that we got our clue. A countryman, looking first askance at our uniforms as his lantern showed us to him, told us that a troop of dragoons had been all day in the wood above his house, but that an hour or more ahead of us they had galloped furiously away on the northward road. Champe and I exchanged discouraged glances. That settled it for us, and when we were out of sight and hearing of the farmer we made some hurried discussion of what came next on our bill of fare.