“Don’t, dad!” yelled Lon. “Don’t shoot the horse.” Hadley nearly choked over his captive’s sudden change of heart, and even black Sam chuckled as he bent his body against the pole at the other side of the boat. They were now well out from the shore and the water was deepening. Suddenly, above the loudly expressed indignation of Farmer Alwood, sounded the clash of accoutrements and the ring of hoofs. A cavalcade was coming along the edge of the river from the direction of the regular ferry. “What is to do here, sirrah?” demanded a sharp voice, which Hadley knew very well. It was the troop of dragoons with Colonel Knowles at their head. They had not found him up the river, and, suspecting that he had struck out for some other place of crossing, were scouring the bank of the stream. Alwood’s boat was the nearest. Farmer Alwood explained the difficulty he was in--his son and slave being obliged, at the point of a pistol, to pole the stable boy of the Three Oaks Inn across to the Pennsylvania side of the river. “Ha! Hadley Morris, you say? The very boy we’re after!” cried the colonel. “Men, give them a volley!” “No, no!” cried the old man. “That’s my son out there and my servant. You want to commit murder, do ye?” “This Alwood is a loyal man, colonel,” the sergeant said. Colonel Knowles snorted in disgust. For the moment he was evidently sorry that the Alwoods were not the worst rebels in the country, so that he could have a good excuse for firing on the rapidly disappearing boat. Their voices still floated across the water to Hadley, and he heard the sergeant say:-- “We’d best give it up, sir. There’s no way of crossing near here, and the whole country will be aroused if we don’t get back to our command. There are more rebels than Tories in this neighborhood, sir.” “Keep at it, boys!” Hadley commanded. “I’ve got my eye on you. Lon--don’t shirk. Hurry up there, Sam, you black rascal!” He could have hugged Sam in his delight at getting away from his enemies: but he did not wish to get the old man into trouble. So he treated him even more harshly than he did Lon all the way across the wide stream. But Lon was in a violent rage when the big flatboat grounded on the Pennsylvania shore. “You may think you’re smart, Had Morris!” he exclaimed, throwing down the pole as Hadley took Molly’s bridle to lead her ashore. “But you an’ me haven’t squared accounts yet. If you’re running away to join Washington’s ragamuffins, you’d better not come back here on our side of the river. We’ll fix you if you do. Anyway, the British army will be here like enough in a few days, and they’ll eat up the last rag, tag, an’ bobtail of ye!” Hadley laughed, but kept a grip on the pistol until he got Molly ashore. He knew that, had he dared, young Alwood would have done something besides threaten; he was not a physical coward by any means.