The other lad peered through the thinning mist, then his eyes widened in recognition and he smiled. “Aye,” he answered jauntily. “Last time I seen you, you was playing hide-and-seek. You grown up yet, I wonder?” “There was others playing it, too,” retorted Tom. “Yes, others. Kitty Greenleaf, you’ll likely remember.” “Kitty Greenleaf! So that’s her name. I never did know the whole of it. Promised her I’d call by and see her, if I ever happened back that way.” “Don’t take the trouble. Kitty’s closer now. She’s in Charlestown with her cousin, Sally Rose. I went home to get some clean shirts and a better gun, and ’twas there I heard it.” “In Charlestown?” asked Tom in surprise. “Charlestown’s not held to be very safe these days. ’Tis thought the British may strike at us from there. I heard there be only a couple hundred people left in the town, and most of the women sent away.” “I heard so, too. But Sally Rose took a notion to go home and nothing would stop her, so Kitty went along. I ain’t got over there yet to see them, but I mean to. I heard Granny Greenleaf went legging after them, mad as time.” Tom laughed in spite of himself as he remembered the thin old voice quavering excitedly, “Stop, thief, stop!” “Maybe I’ll just go along with you, when you do go,” he said. “What’s your name now? Eben, was it?” “Eben! No! You’re thinking of Eben Poore. He’s naught but a foolish little lad. I be Johnny Pettengall.” “So,” said Tom. In the river ahead of him he could see two low green islands getting plainer every minute as the mist cleared away. “Well, Johnny, for old times’ sake then, tell me what’s afoot and what are we down here for?” Johnny’s face brightened and his voice grew eager, now that he was intent again on the business in hand. “Likely, being a New Hampshire man, you come in with Stark’s reserves last night.” “No. I wasn’t detailed to go--nor to stay, either. Couldn’t sleep, and long in the night sometime, I thought I’d just wander this way.” “I been here all along. We was sent over to Noddle’s Island yesterday to drive the cattle off. Farmers who pasture there have been selling beef to the British. We’d cleared off Noddle, burned the house of one man who resisted, and was on our way back across Hog Island, when a sloop and a schooner sailed close in. Fired on us, they did, and o’ course we answered back.” “O’ course,” agreed Tom. “Been firing ever since, except for the schooner--the _Diana_, she is, one of our men said who recognized her. She’s run aground and been abandoned. It’s her we’re going out to burn.” Tom looked where the other lad pointed. Sure enough, there in the gray light, not very far from shore, rode a two-masted schooner, listing badly to one side. Her foresail hung in long streamers that stirred as the morning wind blew through them. Her colors had been shot away, and the lower side of her deck was all awash with sea.