In a flash Phil had been interrupted. The stranger, a boy about his own age, at being so startlingly hailed, had dropped a handful of doughnuts he had grabbed. He drew back and disappeared as if by magic. Phil ran to the window in time to see the night marauder slide the slanting shed roof, reach the ground and flit from view beyond some garden bushes. Like a photograph, however, there had been imprinted on his mind the thin, starved-looking face of the boy and the peculiar muskrat skin cap with a long tail which he wore. The picture remained vivid for a long time, the more so as Phil puzzled himself to make out where he had seen the boy before. He concluded, that it must have been in Boston. "The poor fellow must have been terribly hungry," Phil had decided. "He looked like some refugee in trouble," and Phil later recited the incident to Andy, and revived it just now as for the second time he had happened across the strange lad in as strange a way as on the former occasion. This was the first thought Phil had in his mind as he ran rapidly on. His second thought was of Jasper Bram. Phil had heard that name many a time long before he came to Concord. His father had frequently mentioned it in conversation with Phil and Mrs. Warrington. From what he had heard, Phil came to understand that his father regarded Jasper Bram of Concord as an enemy. Since the trouble with the British troops in Boston had begun, Mr. Warrington had met with severe business losses. He was a strong loyalist, and had refused to side with the English troops in the matter of supplies in which he dealt. One night his warehouse was set on fire in a mysterious way, and was burned to the ground. There was no doubt in the mind of the merchant and his patriotic friends that the British soldiers had committed this outrage. A few days later Phil overheard his father remark to his mother that he was pretty nearly ruined financially by this great loss. He said, too, that he could not see his way very clear to continue business unless he could get money or help somewhere. Mr. Warrington, in discussing the situation, complained bitterly of a great business wrong done him some years before by Jasper Bram. He alluded to trickery, robbery, and stolen documents. He said that if he could get what Bram legally owed him he could renew business. Phil naturally thought of all this when he came to Concord. He made some inquiries about Jasper Bram, to find that he and his loutish son, Greg Bram, were very generally disliked. The more so was this true because they were designated as "regular Tories." The day preceding Phil was coming home from the river when he stepped out of the road to let a sled pass him. Its driver had eyed him sharply. Phil recognized him as the person whom Andy Sabine had pointed out to him a few days previous as Jasper Bram. The grizzled, mean-faced old man stared hard at Phil. He drew his team to a sharp halt. "Hey, you!" he hailed. "What's your name?"