get the day." Captain Hale must have been glad to serve under
such a leader.

Meanwhile, Washington had moved the greater part of his army
outside New York to avoid being shut up in the city as the
British had been in Boston, and was anxiously expecting an
attack. But none came, and his suspense grew greater and greater
as time passed and he got no information as to what would happen.
"Everything depends on obtaining intelligence of the enemy's
motions," he wrote to his officers, "I was never more uneasy than
on account of my want of knowledge," and he begged them to send
some one into the enemy's camp in disguise to find out what their
plans were, and when and where they would attack.

It was not easy to get any one to go, for it meant being a spy.
Spies are necessary in all wars because the commanding general
must have information about the enemy's movements. But soldiers
hate a spy, who comes into their camp as a friend when he is
really an enemy, and honorable men do not like to do this. It is
usually done by men who care most of all for the money it brings.
The service, too, is so dangerous that the general may not
command it, he may only accept it when it is volunteered. If a
spy is caught within the enemy's lines no mercy is shown him; his
trial is swift and his death certain; in those days the penalty
was hanging.

This time a man of intelligence was needed and Colonel Knowlton
explained the matter to some of his officers. One of them is said
to have replied: "I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung."
But there was another who looked at it differently, and this was