"Stand him on his bald head, and loose the horns from the apron. As they fall, he who finds keeps!" roared one of the boisterous party. "Toss them all in the air and let us fight for them," was another suggestion. The hapless butcher glared round him with growing dismay. At this rate half the American army would soon be clamoring round him, drawn by the chance to add to their poor equipment. By this time Jabez Rockwell had wriggled under the arms of the shouting soldiers, twisting like an uncommonly active eel, until he was close to the red-faced butcher. With ready wit the youngster piped up a plan for breaking the deadlock: "There are thirty of us, you say, that put you to rout, Master Ritter. Let us divide the ten horns by lot. Then you can return to your cow-pens with a whole skin and a clean conscience." "There is more sense in that little carcass of yours than in all those big, hulking troopers, that could spit you on a bayonet like a sparrow!" rumbled Master Ritter. "How shall the lots be drawn?" "Away with your lottery!" cried a burly rifleman, whose long hunting-shirt whipped in the bitter wind. "The road up the valley is well beaten down. The old forge is half a mile away. Do you mark a line, old beef-killing Jack, and we will run for our lives. The first ten to touch the stone wall of the smithy will take the ten prizes." Some yelled approval, others fiercely opposed, and the wrangling was louder than before. Master Ritter, who had plucked up heart, began to steal warily from the hillside, hoping to escape in the confusion. A dozen hands clutched his collar and leather apron, and jerked him headlong back into the argument. Young Jabez scrambled to the top of the nearest boulder, and ruffled with importance like a turkey-cock as he waved his arms to command attention. "The guard will be turned out and we shall end this fray by cooling our heels in the prison huts on the hill," he declaimed. "If we run a foot-race, who is to say which of us first reaches the forge? Again,--and I say I never served with such thick-witted troops when I fought under General Arnold at Saratoga,--those with shoes to their feet have the advantage over those that are bound up in bits of cloth and clumsy patches of hide. Draw lots, I say, before the picket is down upon us!" The good-natured crowd cheered the boy orator, and hauled him from his perch with such hearty thumps that he feared they would break him in two. Suddenly the noise was hushed as if the wranglers had been stricken dumb. Fur-capped heads turned to face down the winding valley, and without need of an order, the company spread itself along the roadside in a rude, uneven line. Every man stood at attention, his head up, his shoulders thrown back, hands at his sides. Thus they stood while they watched a little group of horsemen trot toward them.