Dick took the sheet handed to him, and read the words: "Strength of each battery,--number men in each force,--Mere Frappeur,--wine shop near Palace Gate,--Molly, my Treasure,--boat,--each night,--shore this side stockade near foot Cape Diamond." While the three officers discussed in low tones at one end of the table, Dick sat at the other end, and memorized every circumstance mentioned in the letters of Montgomery and Carleton. He then rose, and, being noticed by Colonel Arnold, returned those two letters, and took his leave, retaining the pass, Arnold's brief notes, and the genuine letter from Carleton to Maclean. He was followed from the room by the kindly smile of Captain Hendricks. It was now almost nightfall. Dick returned to his quarters, in a barn loft, put from his pockets and attire whatever might betray him, and saw with satisfaction that his clothes, now mended by old Tom and replenished from the stock of a dead comrade, no longer bore striking evidence of his march through Maine. He assured himself for the thousandth time that the miniature was still in its hiding-place; made a hasty supper with his mess on the barn floor below; called MacAlister aside and told of his coming absence on reconnoitring duty; shook the old fellow's hand, and was gone. "Guid luck, and a merry meeting in this waurld or some ither!" was old Tom's farewell. Dick tore up his pass as soon as it had been honored at last by the outermost picket; for in his zeal to respect his commander's every wish he was determined to make so wide a detour in rounding the camp that he could not possibly come near another sentry. The night was well advanced when he strode finally between the colonial army and the frowning city. Skulking past Mount's Tavern, giving a wide berth to every farmhouse or suburban residence that might perchance shelter some American force on special duty, he stood at last between the suburb of St. Louis and that of St. John's, and hesitated as to which gate to approach. He chose that of St. John's, and, hastening up to it with an air of importance and fatigue, was challenged at some distance by a sentry on the wall. His prompt account of himself got him speedily through the wicket, and soon a guard officer was escorting him to Colonel Maclean, who was for the time quartered in a house near the bastion of La Potasse, in order to be close to the barracks and St. John's Gate.