FAR away back in old English history there was a famous archer named Robin Hood, who lived in the deep woods with a bold band of outlaws like himself. He and his band were foes of the nobles and friends of the poor, and his name will never be forgotten by the people of England. No doubt you have read about the gallant archer. No man of his time could send an arrow so straight and sure as he. But we need not go back for hundreds of years to find our Robin Hood. We have had a man like him in our own country, who fought for us in the Revolution. His name was Francis Marion, and he was known as the "Swamp Fox"; for he lived in the swamps of South Carolina as Robin Hood did in the forests of England, and he was the stinging foe of the oppressors of the people. I have already told you about the war in the North, and of how the British, after doing all they could to overthrow Washington and conquer the country, found themselves shut up in the city of New York, with Washington like a watch-dog outside. When the British generals found that the North was too hard a nut to crack, they thought they would try what they could do in the South. So they sent a fleet and an army down the coast, and before long they had taken the cities of Savannah and Charleston, and had their soldiers marching all over Georgia and South Carolina. General Gates, the man to whom Burgoyne surrendered, came down with a force of militia to fight them, but he was beaten so badly that he had to run away without a soldier to follow him. You can imagine that the British were proud of their success. They thought themselves masters of the South, and fancied they had only to march north and become masters there, too. But you must not think that they were quite masters. Back in the woods and the swamps were men with arms in their hands and with love of country in their hearts. They were like wasps or hornets, who kept darting out from their nests, stinging the British troops, and then darting back out of sight. These gallant bands were led by Marion, Sumter, Pickens, and other brave men; but Marion's band was the most famous of them all, so I shall tell you about the Swamp Fox and what he did. I fancy all of my young friends would have laughed if they had seen Marion's band when it joined General Gates' army. Such scarecrows of soldiers they were! There were only about twenty of them in all, some of them white and some black, some men and some boys, dressed in rags that fluttered in the wind, and on horses that looked as if they had been fed on corncobs instead of corn. Gates and his men did laugh at them, though they took care not to laugh when Marion was at hand. He was a small man, with a thin face, and dressed not much better than his men. But there was a look in his eye that told the soldiers he was not a safe man to laugh at.