all pull out."

Jacob could not well have made complaint after this, and he settled down
with his back against a tree to wait with so much of patience as he could
summon, until the old soldier should give the word.

It surprised me that Jacob was not utterly cast down by the possibility
that his father had already been carried to the Indian village, for once
there we could not hope to effect a rescue; but since this thought had,
apparently, never come into his mind, it was not for me to add to his
distress by suggesting it.

Well, we remained in the thicket until the red villains had quieted down
for the night, and then Sergeant Corney led us toward the south, that we
might make a long circle around the encampment, when would come the most
dangerous portion of our task.

Thus far we had done as Jacob would have us, and at the same time
performed our full duty as Minute Boys, for our task was to learn what
Brant counted on doing, and as to that we could not be certain until he
was in the village.

But now that the old soldier was leading us around the encampment to the
end that we might gain a position between Brant's force and those at
Oghkwaga, I said to myself, with many an inward shudder, that we were like
to join Jacob's father after a different fashion than we had counted on.

It was as if Sergeant Corney had no fear as to what might happen, for he
plunged into the gloom of the forest like a man who walks among friends,
and Jacob followed carelessly, all his thoughts on the possible