It seemed as if we gained cover without having been seen, and once the crippled lads and the children were safe, Master Bartlett and Stephen Morley spent a full hour trying to hide the trail which, despite our best efforts, had been left behind. Esther Hinchman had a soft word of greeting for me when we were arrived, which caused me to forget all fatigue, discomfort, or fears for the future, and then we set about making more habitable this place of defence and abode. Esther, Oscar, and Daniel had worked like beavers doing what they might to make it homelike, and but for the absence of light, I would have said that we could ask for nothing better. As a matter of course the place was dark; but Esther tried to cheer the other women by showing a small store of candles, which had been found among the packages made up by Eben Towle, and promising that, whenever it should be thought safe, the tunnel could be illumined as well as any house. Then, while we lay upon the ground, resting from the fatigue of the tramp, we speculated as to where the man might be who had dug out this place, which we believed would serve us well. Giles felt quite certain he was with us when we marched from Forty Fort to give battle to John Butler’s force, and if such had been the case, then was it certain the poor man would never need a hiding-place in this world, for unless he was among the slain, then would we have found him there. He had no family, as we knew full well, therefore it seemed certain that we alone, of all who were left alive in the valley, had knowledge of the tunnel. I will not undertake to say how much of provisions we found as he had left them. Considerable was spoiled because of having been stored away so long; but sufficient yet remained to keep us alive many days, and, in addition, we had the supplies brought from the cave. “We are in good shape to begin our work,” Master Bartlett said when the situation had been discussed to a finish, “and it is now for us to pay off the scores John Butler has run up.” “How will we set about it?” Elias Shendle asked, eagerly, as if counting that he could do his full share of work with the best of us. “That can’t well be figured out till we know what may be doing at Forty Fort,” Master Bartlett replied. “I have had it in mind that we would hold together as Minute Boys, even though some of us are a bit old to be counted in that class, and it will go hard if we don’t do some work that will tell, not only to those whose homes are here in the valley, but in the struggle against the king.” “Who will go to Forty Fort to learn what may be doing there?” Daniel Hinchman asked, and I knew he was burning with the desire to do that portion of the work. “You, if it so be Jonathan Ogden is willing.” “Why speak in that way?” I asked, perhaps a little petulantly, for it was not to my liking that they hold longer to the pretence of my being captain.