The Delaware was silent for a few seconds. His active brain was busy, reviewing the situation. "No," he finally said; "stay here till Omas come back; then go with him--all go--den no one be hurt." "Very well; we will wait till you come to us again. We will take good care of Linna." And without another word the Delaware turned once more, strode to the forest, which was then in fullest leaf, and vanished among the trees. Mrs. Ripley walked slowly back to the door. On the threshold she halted, and looked around again for her absent boy. It was growing dark, and she began to feel a vague alarm for him. A whistle fell on her ear. It was the sweetest music she had ever heard, for it came from the lips of her boy. He was in sight, coming along the well worn path that led in front of the other dwellings and to her own door. When he saw her, he waved his hand in salutation, but could not afford to break in on the vigorous melody which kept his lips puckered. She saw he was carrying something on his shoulder. A second glance showed that it was one of the heavy rifles used by the pioneers a hundred years ago. The sight--taken with what Omas had just said--filled her heart with forebodings. She waited until the lad came up. He kissed her affectionately, and then in the offhand manner of a big boy, let the butt of the gun drop on the ground, leaned the top away from him, and glancing from it to his mother, asked--"What do you think of it?" "It seems to be a good gun. Whose is it?" "Mine," was the proud response. "Colonel Butler ordered that it be given to me, and I'm to use it, too, mother." "For what purpose?" "The other Colonel Butler--you know he is a cousin to ours--has got a whole lot of Tories" (who, you know, were Americans fighting against their countrymen) "and Indians, and they're coming down to wipe out Wyoming; but I guess they will find it a harder job than they think." And to show his contempt for the danger, the muscular lad lifted his weighty weapon to a level, and pretended to sight it at a tree. "I wish that was a Tory or one of those Six Nation Indians--wouldn't I drop him!" The mother could not share the buoyancy of her son. She stepped outside, so as to be beyond the hearing of the little ones. "Omas has been here; that is his little girl that you hear laughing with Alice. He has told me the same as you--the Tories and Indians are coming, and he wants us to flee with him." "What does he mean by that?" asked the half indignant boy. "He says they will put us all to death, and if we do not go with him, we will be killed too." The handsome face of Benjamin Ripley took on an expression of scorn, and as he straightened up, he seemed to become several inches taller. "He forgets that I am with you! Omas is very kind; but he and his Tory friends had better look out for themselves. Why, with the men at the fort, Colonel Butler will have several hundred." "But they are mostly old men and boys."