At the moment when the prisoners were landed, he had remarked Desborough, who had uttered the hasty exclamation already recorded, stealing cautiously through the surrounding crowd, and apparently endeavouring to arrest the attention of the younger of the American officers. An occasional pressing of the spur into the flank of Silvertail, enabled him to turn as the settler turned, and thus to keep him constantly in view; until, at length, as the latter approached the group of which General Brock and Commodore Barclay formed the centre, he observed him distinctly to make a sign of intelligence to the Militia Officer, whose eye he at length attracted, and who now bestowed upon him a glance of hasty and furtive recognition. Curiosity induced Sampson to move Silvertail a little more in advance, in order to be enabled to obtain a better view of the prisoners; but the latter, turning away his head at the moment, although apparently without design, baffled his penetration. Still he had a confused and indistinct idea that the person was not wholly unknown to him. When the prisoners had been disposed of, and the crowd dispersed, Sampson continued to linger near the council house, exchanging greetings with the newly arrived Chiefs, and drinking from whatever whiskey bottle was offered to him, until he at length gave rapid indication of arriving at his third or grand climacteric. Then were to be heard the loud shoutings of his voice, and the clattering of Silvertail's hoofs, as horse and rider flew like lightning past the fort into the town, where a more than usual quantity of the favorite liquid was quaffed at the several stores, in commemoration, as he said, of the victory of his noble boy, Gerald Grantham, and to the success of the British arms generally throughout the war. Among the faults of Sampson Gattrie, was certainly not that of neglecting the noble animal to whom long habit had deeply attached him. Silvertail was equally a favorite with the son, who had more than once ridden him in the occasional races that took place upon the hard sands of the lake shore, and in which he had borne every thing away. As Sampson was ever conscious and collected about this hour, care was duly taken by him that his horse should be fed, without the trouble to himself of dismounting. Even as Gattrie sat in his saddle, Silvertail was in the daily practice of munching his corn out of a small trough that stood in the yard of the inn where he usually stopped, while his rider conversed with whoever chanced to be near him--the head of his cudgel resting on his ample thigh, and a glass of his favorite whiskey in his other and unoccupied hand.