“Lead for Colonel Stark?” he replied to Tom’s question. “Yes, he’s to have a supply our men cut out of the organ pipes in the English church across the Common. Trouble is, I can’t think for the minute where ’tis stored. Suppose you come back tomorrow.” Tom pulled a tendril off a grape vine that grew on a trellis over the door and began to chew it. “Stark wants me to bring it back tonight,” he said. The young officer sat up and surveyed him insolently. “Stark may not know it, but there’s a war beginning,” he announced. “Yes,” agreed Tom. “There is. That’s what he wants the lead for.” Suddenly they were both laughing. “You’re right, man,” answered the young officer in a friendlier tone. “We’re all on edge, and it takes us different ways, I guess. But I still don’t know where the stuff has got to, and I’m afraid we can’t do anything till Prescott takes his force out of town, which he’ll do as soon as it’s dark enough. Come back a little after nine.” “Where’s Prescott going?” Tom asked. The officer laid his finger across his mouth. “Prescott knows--and nobody else has any need to. Have you got rations, lad?” “No,” said Tom, “we come empty-handed. Three others besides me.” The officer wrote rapidly on a slip of paper. “Here. Take this to the head of the Common when you hear them blow a bugle up there. Give it to the mess sergeant, and he’ll see you have some supper.” “Thank you, sir,” said Tom. He went back to where he had left his companions. He found them sitting along the top rail of a fence while the horses cropped the wayside grass. “Did you find out what’s afoot, Tom?” asked Hugh Watts eagerly. The men in the streets were thinning out, but those on the Common, though no longer drawn up at attention, still remained there. “Oh, there’s a war beginning, and nobody knows where the lead is,” said Tom, flinging himself down on the grass. “Didn’t find out a thing beyond that.” “We did,” said Asa. “After the man got through praying, we asked around. Seems Colonel Prescott’s taking out twelve hundred men with packs and blankets and a day’s ration. There’s a fatigue crew along, and picks and shovels like they mean to fortify. Nobody knows where.” “It’ll either be behind Dorchester or Charlestown,” said Tom. He thought fleetingly of Kitty, and the yellow-haired minx, and the gallant old woman. He hoped they’d got safe away, but he didn’t think of them long. “There’s the bugle,” he said. “Let’s go get supper.”