"By watching them, lad!" Pierre cried eagerly. "By watching them! Do you count that from this moment on we shall do anything save watch them? I would almost be willing to let Abel Hunt go free so we might be unhampered, for while the red-coats are getting ready to retreat they will give little heed to any information such as he can give them. But it may be well to hold him until night-fall, and then the three of us, each going in a different direction, must keep sharp watch over all that is being done, ready to make a break for our lines at the first moment we are certain the enemy has fled." The lad's tone, equally with his words, was well calculated to stir the blood, and as I saw in the future a possibility that Silver Heels might yet be reclaimed by me, I ceased to mourn her as being lost forever, but gave all my thoughts to the triumph which awaited our people. We were talking loudly, having ceased to be cautious in speech because the roar of the guns drowned all other sounds, and were giving noisy voice to our joy when Uncle 'Rasmus suddenly cried from his seat at the window, where he had stood watch, so to speak, all the dreary time we had been in the besieged village: "Hol' on dar, chillun; hol' on dar! Here comes a crowd ob red-coats!" "Coming for us?" Saul cried nervously, and I am ashamed to say that the suggestion caused my knees to tremble, even though had I stopped to reflect upon the matter I would have understood that at such a time as this, when he was in sore straits, my Lord Cornwallis would not trouble himself about three boys and an old negro who were where they could not do him harm however much they so desired. As a matter of course we crowded to the window near where Uncle 'Rasmus sat, and there saw a group of nine men, powder-stained and evidently wearied from work in the trenches, halt within less than twenty yards of the cabin door where they threw themselves down upon the ground, evidently for no other purpose than to gain a needed rest. "It is nothing," Pierre said, again quickly reading the signs. "These men are becoming discouraged, most like having an inkling of what their officers count on doing, and have deliberately come out of the trenches without permission, to take such ease as can be found to-day for a red-coat in the town of York." We watched the men curiously, and for my part with a certain sense of exultation because I fancied they knew the fate which was in store for them. They were all armed, fully accoutered, and should have been at their posts, as I understood. After their arrival we talked more guardedly, but not the less triumphantly regarding what we would do, and little Frenchie explained how one of us might cross the lines at this point, the second at another, and the third elsewhere, so there might be no delay in getting news to an officer of our army immediately we were positive Cornwallis had drawn off his forces.