The family spent some very happy years in the little cabin that stood in a clearing. The boys knew nearly every one in the town; and as they grew older began to show themselves capable of assisting in the task of supporting the family. Often they brought in game from the forest, and in the season their traps yielded them quite a little harvest in the pelts of otter, muskrat, mink, fox, badger and wildcat. Suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue sky, trouble swooped down upon the Armstrongs. David had some difficulty with his employer, and was discharged, since he was too proud to seek a reconciliation, when he fully believed himself to be in the right. Then, one night, the tobacco barn of Jason Diggett burned to the ground, entailing quite a loss. Suspicion alighted on David, simply because it was known that between the two men ill feelings existed. So David was arrested, and held in the town blockhouse for a whole week; but, there being no actual proof against him, he was allowed to go free. That had been more than a month before, and, ever since, most of the people who had once called themselves his friends had turned their heads aside when by chance they met. The odor of guilt clung to his skirts, for, even though the law had declared it had no evidence upon which to base conviction, people _believed_ he must be guilty, since some one had surely set fire to the barn, and who besides David had any grudge against Jason Diggett? Armstrong fretted greatly over the injustice of such action, and it took all the tact of his wife, Mary, to keep him from doing some rash act. "If this keeps up much longer, wife," he would say, after a fresh exhibition of coldness and aloofness on the part of those who had once called him friend, "we must leave here for good, and go further into the wilderness. It is useless for me to look further for work, since no one wishes to employ a _barn-burner_!" His loving wife would labor to cheer him up as only a loyal woman could. Possessed of a sunny disposition, trusting by nature, and above all imbued with a strong sense of God's goodness, Mary Armstrong refused to lose heart. "It will surely come out all right, husband," she would say, as her loving hands smoothed the frown away from his forehead; "we must have patience, and do our part. To-morrow, perhaps the day after; but in His good time it will all be well." And, although David had vowed he would not again seek work in that bitter community, when another day arrived, her sweet influence over him was so great that once more he would stalk forth, moodily, but with his spirit still uncrushed. It was a momentous time in the history of the colonies. For many months there had been heard mutterings of the storm that was later to break at Lexington and Bunker Hill. Already people were taking sides, even in the more distant settlements, and were either patriots or loyalists, according to the way they looked at things.