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 Amos Williams's farmhouse. Instinctively they lagged a little, everyone trying to pierce the curtain of rain with straining eyes.

Mehitable caught her breath.

"Dost see aught, Your Excellency?" she stammered.

General Washington stared ahead of him.

"Nay, I think not," he said at last. "Forward!"

They drew closer together as they galloped on. The officers would have passed ahead to protect their general had he given them opportunity; but he did not pause.

The house stood silent and lonely at the side of the road as they neared it, but they all drew a combined breath of relief when they had actually passed it. Then suddenly, straight over the rail fence which fronted the dwelling, leaped a dark form.

As her horse swerved aside, Mehitable uttered a shriek, then another, as General Washington's mount, startled by this quick swerving, lost its footing and crashed down in a bog hole. But General Washington with an agility unbelievable in a man of his years, had leaped clear of the brute as it floundered in the mud, and throwing the bridle over its head he had jerked it to its feet and was again upon its back before the others could do more than gasp. The next instant Mehitable was laughing hysterically.

"It be only—only old Shep, Mistress Williams's watchdog!" she explained when she could speak. "He is more harmless than his master, in sooth!"

To prove it, as their horses danced and circled around one another, old Shep, reassured by Mehitable's familiar voice, sneaked rather sheepishly into his own