Even amid his duties, and they were many, Doctor Warren had time to think of me and my well-being, for when, near to sunset, I was standing with my father in front of the building occupied by the Committee of Safety, already taking leave of him, the doctor came up smiling as if seeing in me an old and valued friend, and said: "I am not minded, lad, that you should tramp from here to the ferry in order to regain your skiff. Leave her where she is, and she may serve you a good turn at another time. Hiram Griffin has made ready a boat on the river, and you can embark in her, if so be it is prudent to land on either shore of the town." "I will take the chance, sir, at one place or another," I said, feeling wondrously relieved at thus being spared the many miles of travel, and for a moment thinking it might be the doctor's purpose to send Hiram with me. After I found the boat which had been made ready, I could not repress an exclamation of disappointment at seeing that she was a large craft, far too heavy to be handled by a single person. "I have the long tramp before me even now," I said in a tone of dismay to my father, who had accompanied me to the river. "With a craft like that I would have no hope of escape if peradventure the lobster backs gave chase." "I reckon the two of us can manage to make a decent show of speed," Hiram said with a laugh, and then it was I learned that he counted on going with me into the town, taking his chances of getting back later, rather than allow me to go alone. "You had better join us Minute Boys and have done with it, Hiram," I said gleefully, taking my seat in the boat after having bidden my father good by. "It seems to me you are like to meet with more of adventure in our company, than loitering behind here at Cambridge where all are much like a flock of sheep without a leader." "Faith, and I begin to believe that myself," Hiram replied as he took up the oars, and a moment later we were gliding down the river in the twilight which would be deepened to darkness before we were come within sight of Boston. No sooner were we well under way than there came to me again the same hope I had had during a portion of the time we lay hidden on Noddle island, regarding the possibility of being able to free Archie from prison, and I asked in what I intended should be a careless tone: "Hiram, if it so chanced while you were in Boston town that there was the shadow of a hope of getting Archie out of prison, would you lend a hand?" "Give me half a show to do aught toward thwarting the lobster backs, and I'll stay with you till the crack of doom, if so be I live that long and the job is not finished before." "Then we'll find the way," I said as if believing the words were true, even though at the same moment I deemed it little less than the fancy of a madman to think anything could be done to aid the dear lad while he was held so closely by the enemy.