“But why do we stay?” Giles asked. “In a few minutes these fellows will have surrounded the stockade, and then there can be no choice in the matter. It shouldn’t be difficult to scale the wall at the other end, and take our chances in the woods, rather than stay here until they choose to drag us out.” I could have cried aloud with vexation because I had been so simple as to settle it firmly in my mind that there was no further chance of escape for us. Giles had spoken wisely, and it would be folly to do other than as he suggested. Master Bartlett, touching each of us in turn, for it was so dark that we could not distinguish the movements of the one nearest us, crept cautiously in the direction of which Giles had spoken, and soon the three of us were stealing swiftly along, able to do so silently because there was nothing to impede our progress over ground which had been beaten hard by the tramp of many feet. Giles reached the northern wall before either Master Bartlett or myself came up, and, when we stood against the logs, he was already on top of the stockade, waiting to give us a hand up. Because the old man could not move as nimbly as either of us lads, I did what I could toward lifting him, while Giles pulled from above, and in this fashion we got him over, after which it was a simple matter for me to climb up by aid of the platform, when I dropped to the ground on the opposite side. We were in the thicket once more; but the night was so dark, as I have already said, that it was impossible to move swiftly and at the same time surely. I certainly was not woodsman enough to be able to keep on a straight course while travelling rapidly in the night. Master Bartlett must have distrusted his own powers in this direction, for he whispered, after we had crept away from the stockade as we would from a place of deadliest danger: “It’s a case of trusting to luck now, lads, and going blindly. So that we do not double back on our tracks, we may be able to give those fellows the slip and a fairly hard night’s work, for, believing we are yet inside, they will spend no little time and labor in gaining entrance without exposing themselves to what they believe may be danger.” It must not be supposed that we had halted near by where John Butler’s Tories could overhear what was said. Before either of us spoke, we put at least twenty yards between ourselves and the walls of the fort, and even then conversed only in faintest whispers. I tried to keep in mind a general idea of the country, so that we might have, when it came time to rest, some knowledge of our location. We left the stockade at the northern end; the river should be at our left, and the only safe course lay straight to the right. If we could travel in a fairly direct line half an hour or more, there was good reason for believing we would be near the mountains, and safe from pursuit. Then, when day came, it would go hard if we were unable to retrace our steps.