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 "or ye will be brought up for court-martial when ye do return, sir!"

Jerry paled. "Be that as it may, Captain Stockton, I cannot break my word!"

"Break thy word or be broken by court-martial!" answered the other in a level voice of deadly enmity. Turning upon his heel, he vanished into the night.

Sally, who had been sent to the dairy for a pitcher of fresh milk for the Todd baby, did not dare to move until Jerry had walked away also. Then, cramped by her tense position just inside the low window of the dairy, outside of which the two British officers had been talking, she stood up and, taking the pitcher in her hand, hurried to the door. What was her dismay, however, to see two dim figures sauntering toward her from the farmhouse. She had barely time to close the dairy door again very stealthily when Master Todd and a younger neighbor, Uzal Ball, came to a halt in precisely the same place Jerry and Stockton had stood, outside the dairy window. Sally unashamedly crept over closer to listen.

"Ye advise, then, to lodge the boy in jail, Uzal?" Master Todd was evidently continuing a conversation begun a little earlier, "I like not to do so. After all, he is very young, scarcely o'er eighteen, despite his height and breadth o' shoulder. It means a tedious trial and mayhap e'en death. He says