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 attending to the simmering pots, that Sally heard an odd noise, a crunching, munching sort of sound. She looked up curiously, to behold His Excellency's horse impolitely chewing off mouthfuls of the Widow Ball's wooden window ledge! She stifled a laugh and said nothing, although Colonel Hamilton and David kept glancing at her merry eyes as though they longed to ask the cause and share her mirth, all through supper.

They were seated comfortably around the candlelit table when David, who had gone outside to stand guard, burst into the parlor. "Fly!" he gasped. "The Tories! They ha' heard o' His Excellency's presence here! Young Zenas Williams, who heard his brother James plot wi' the Tories, but now hath arrived. He doth say that James be leading them hither on the ridge road from the settlement!"

Swiftly General Washington bowed over the Widow Ball's hand and was gone. There was a clatter of hoofs from the kitchen below, a low command, and then a dark figure issuing from the door near the chimney leaped upon another dark form and was off.

"Not this night, James Williams, do ye capture the hope o' these United Colonies!" exclaimed David exultantly, when Colonel Hamilton, bidding them adieu, had hastily followed his chief and had galloped off toward the village of Millburn and on