We got to headquarters at five, and turned over the prisoners. We
had never a warmer welcome than that of the colonel.

"I congratulate you both," he said as he brought the rum-bottle
after we had made our report. "You've got more fight in you than a
wolverene. Down with your rum and off to your beds, and report
here at reveille. I have a tough job for you to-morrow."




XI

It was, indeed, tougher business than we had yet known--a dash into
the enemy's country, where my poor head was in excellent demand.
D'ri and I were to cross the lake with a band of raiders, a troop
of forty, under my command. We were to rescue some prisoners in a
lockup on the other side. They were to be shot in the morning, and
our mission therefore admitted of no delay. Our horses had been
put aboard a brig at midnight, and soon after the noon mess we
dropped down the lake, going into a deep, wooded cove south of the
Grenadier Island. There we lay waiting for nightfall. A big wind
was howling over the woods at sunset, and the dark came on its
wings an hour ahead of time. The night was black and the lake
noisy when we got under way, bound for a flatboat ferry. Our
skipper, it turned out, had little knowledge of those waters. He
had shortened sail, and said he was not afraid of the weather. The
wind, out of the southeast, came harder as it drove us on. Before
we knew it, the whole kit and boodle of us were in a devil of a
shakeup there in the broad water. D'ri and I were down among the