"Remembering what you said about raising a company of Minute Boys, and believing you would do so, I fancied it might pleasure you to know that there was come so soon an opportunity to aid the Cause. I counted on seeing two, however," he added as if in disappointment. In the fewest possible words I told him of our misadventure the night previous, and asked if he believed it might be possible for us boys to do aught toward effecting the poor lad's release. "I question if an equal number of men could do anything," the doctor replied, speaking as if he was sorrowful because of not being able to hold out hope. "His father is known as a Son of Liberty, and it will most like be charged against him that he was attempting to carry information to us rebels here in Cambridge, therefore he will be guarded more closely than if he had been guilty of some grievous crime." I strove unsuccessfully to choke back the sob which finally escaped my lips, and then, thinking that if I was to have any opportunity to serve the Cause it ill became me to play the part of a baby, asked with as much firmness as I could muster: "What work have you for us Minute Boys to do, sir?" "The Committee of Safety believes that you lads can be of great service in bringing to us news from the town, and it was to discuss with you how best one of your company might make his way to us here, when you had learned that which it would advantage us to know." "I do not believe it would be possible to lay out any one route by which we would be able come at all times." I made bold to reply. "On certain nights we might perchance set off from Fox hill, and come across without difficulty. Again we could, perhaps, make Barton's point our place of departure. In fact it would depend upon where the red-coats had been stationed, and what they were about." "Yes, yes, lad, I understand that full well. What we had in mind was to settle how you might hide skiffs at these various places in order to take sudden advantage of any favorable opportunity. Your father is in camp; have speech with him, and come back to me here an hour later." If Hiram Griffin had been standing near the door listening to our conversation he could not have entered the room at a better moment, for the doctor had but just spoken those words which were the same as token of my dismissal, when he came in, and I asked if he could tell me where my father might be found. It seems no more than right I should set down here the fact that Hiram Griffin, during all the time I knew him, seemed ever to be in possession of such information as a curiously inclined person might pick up. I believe of a verity he spent all his spare moments gathering that which seemed at the time useless knowledge, for, leave him four and twenty hours in town or camp, and he had become acquainted with all the minor personages and details of the place.