CHAPTER XIII

A SERIOUS DILEMMA

"Hold on, I'm coming!" cried Andy quickly. He was, indeed, falling clear off the beam. He started a descent, grabbed at a dangling strip of tan bark, and dropped from its end dismayed and disordered looking. Some loose bark, debris, shoes, a cap and his coat rained down after him.

"Who are you, anyhow?" demanded Swithins, striking an attitude of astonishment mingled with suspicion, and staring sharply at the lad.

"Who is he?" cried Peters, with a dark scowl. "Ask me. I know. He's the boy who fetched me that blow back at the old cellar in Lowell."

"What!" shouted Swithins, fairly bristling with suspicion.

"Yes. I saw him as he ran. Where's the other? Where is he, I say?" demanded the fellow, advancing menacingly upon Andy. "Who else is up in that garret?"

"Don't you see I'm alone?" inquired Andy doughtily, standing his ground and shielding his companion.

"Alone, eh?" sneered Peters, pointing to the mass of debris at Andy's feet. "One boy don't wear three shoes, does he?"

Andy saw it was no use trying to shield his comrade, for his own shoes and one belonging to Phil lay at his feet. The man Peters made a jump for the ladder and ascended it rapidly. With his shoulder he thrust open the scuttle, stuck in his pistol, and yelled:

"This way and out of there, or I'll put this Tory bullet in your rebel hide!"

Phil crept over the beams and a minute later stood in the room below. Peters eyed him with a wicked look as he reloaded his pistol. Swithins thrust both of the boys into the corner near the chimney, and seating himself viewed them with a threatening eye.

"Right you are, Peters," he remarked. "No accidental meeting that with these fellows back at Lowell, message for Dr. Warren, planted here at our rendezvous. Regular spies, take my word for it--regular spies. Now then, what brought you to this place?"

"Just happened here," declared Andy airily.

"Tell that to the marines. Search them, Peters. Then we'll consider this case a little closer."

Phil and Andy were forced to submit to the rough handling by Peters. The man emptied their pockets, inspecting their miscellaneous belongings critically.

"Humph!" he remarked, as he found Andy's full name scratched on the German silver of his pocket knife.

"Aha!" he added, as he glanced at the inside cover of Phil's memorandum book. "Swithins, this is a real catch. Now then, you two in turn answer the questions of this here court martial, or it will be the worse for you."

"What makes it a court martial, if I may ask?" demanded Andy coolly.

"Spying!" shouted Peters, with emphasis and a grewsome leer. "A spy is a hanged man when he is caught."

"Sort of spies trying spies, eh?" laughed Andy irrepressibly. "Go on--you're joking!"

"Your name is Sabine," said the man. "Swithins, this boy must be the son of the rank agitator we've got on our Concord list."

"Right enough," responded Andy with pride, "if you mean the kind of agitator who has over two hundred armed patriots at his call the minute a redcoat sticks his nose out of Boston Town."

"Oh, you can't get me wrathy, with all your bold sauce, young jackanapes," chuckled Peters. "You won't crow so loud, my young bantam, when they come to wring your neck for this smart spy act of yours. It's all right," he added to his companion. "T'other one is Warrington. He's a son of that rich merchant in Boston who wouldn't sell our people supplies. Why, this catch is almost as good as Warren himself. I think Gage will know how to handle things with sons of two rebel leaders as prisoners."

"Yes," observed Swithins, with a calculating expression in his eye, "and I fancy those two old rebels would pay a fancy price to ransom these boys. Come here, I've a private word for your ear."

The two men went to a remote corner of the room and indulged in a serious, low-toned conversation. Phil caught an occasional word, such as "rebels," "spies," "confess," "ransom," "the ship _Vixen_," and the like. It was easy to surmise the plan of the two men. They intended to make capital out of their capture in some way.

Peters finally approached the boys, his reloaded pistol in one hand, while Swithins, as if by concerted arrangement, went out into the shed. The former tried to impress and scare the boys by trying to appear dangerous, but Phil and Andy only looked tranquilly interested.

"I pronounce you two, prisoners of his royal majesty, King George," observed Peters grandiloquently, and with a swagger.

"That sounds real big," observed Andy.

"We have decided to turn you over to the government, as you are spies," continued Peters, "and as such by the law of nations are placed in the desperate cat--cata--"

"Catalogue," prompted Andy recklessly.

"Yes, catalogue. No, no," dissented the speaker with a scowl--"gory,--category. We shall shoot at first attempt to escape."

"All right," piped Andy cheerily. "You are having all the fun just now, but when the real trouble begins, somebody will be looking hard for us and--you."

Phil had not spoken. He was more thoughtful than Andy. He did not for a moment believe that they were in any serious danger. They might be kept for a time in the hands of these men, but when they found there was nothing of importance to be learned they would be set free.

For all this Phil very gravely realized that things were working along the line of war, as Old Silas Berks had said. Every step in their recent progress, Phil discerned, showed more and more clearly that a crisis was near. It needed but a spark to set the whole country aflame. They had helped in their humble way, he and Andy, to upset some of the plans of the British. He hoped that their further possible usefulness might be tested when the war broke out.

It was about an hour later when Peters and Swithins perfected their plans as to their captives. They strapped Phil and Andy on to old Dobbin. They left a letter under the map for some confederate who was expected to arrive at the lonely hut later.

Then, Swithins leading the horse, Peters walking behind, a pistol handle sticking out of either side of his belt, the party proceeded on their journey through the snow drifts.