“Get that belt which was buckled on my arms!” I whispered. “Work lively, an’ I’ll keep his tongue still so Ezra won’t suspect anythin’.” It was impossible for Luther to put up much of a fight while one of my hands was over his mouth and the other on the top of his head pressing it down among the pine needles, and Sam was by no means a laggard in obeying the command I had given. He had the belt buckled around Luther’s arms almost before I was done speaking, and then ripped off a goodly piece of the Tory’s shirt, with which he made a gag. When this last was in place, and held by the rope that had so lately fettered Sam, we were ready to give Master Billings the reception of his life, and there is no question in my mind but that he got it. “Have the Whigs nestled ’round much since I left?” he asked with a laugh as he stepped within the line of bushes, and on the instant I dealt him a blow on the chin that seemingly knocked the life out of him, for he fell like a log, and Sam asked nervously: “Have you killed him, Eph?” “I reckon there’s life enough left in him to do considerable mischief to the Cause if so be he has the chance. He was needin’ that same dose for the squarin’ of accounts between us, an’ I reckon he got it full an’ plenty. I wouldn’t trust these sneakin’ Tories even when they look harmless, so while I make certain he don’t find himself sufficiently to raise an outcry, do you see what can be used with which to put him in somethin’ the same shape we were a few minutes ago.” By the time we had bound our prisoners securely, each with a gag in his mouth, Sam and I had sacrificed the greater portion of our shirts; but this waste of good clothing we did not mourn over, and would willingly have given up all we wore rather than take any chances of their giving us the slip. “That’s what I call turnin’ the tables in good shape,” Sam said in a tone of deepest content as he wiped the perspiration from his face, for the night was warm and we had had considerable vigorous exercise. “The question now is, what we’ll do with the sneaks?” “Take ’em to New York!” I replied emphatically, for while gnawing at the rope which bound Sam’s arms I had decided what we should do in case we succeeded in changing places with the Tories. “New York!” Sam cried as if in dismay. “It can’t be done!” “Why not?” “We’d never get from here to Wallabout with ’em, an’ that’s the fact.” “I can’t see why it shouldn’t be done. With those gags to prevent them from makin’ any outcry, an’ the points of our pocket-knives for spurs, I fail to see why the trick can’t be turned, if we set out at once.” “But what about our work here?” “It won’t suffer durin’ the hours of darkness, an’ at least one of us can be back here before the sun rises.”