CHAPTER XXVIII

BOSTON AT LAST

"Go slow, Phil."

"We couldn't go much slower if we tried."

"That's so," returned Andy Sabine. "I meant in the way of caution. Now then, anchor your side of the old raft with your pole, and I'll do the same on my side. We've arrived. What's the lookout?"

"Dismal enough," answered Phil, peering ahead in the semi-darkness of twilight through a maze of reeds. "I see a big scow loaded with hay. I hear voices, but they are at the other end of the old craft."

"That scow is our destination, Phil," said Andy smartly.

"Oh, is that so?"

"It is. The voices you hear are Johnny redcoats, and we are simply to get to the scow unobserved, smuggle down serenely in the hay, and heave yo! for Boston."

"Good," nodded Phil cheerily. "So far, very good. It's quite a little stretch from here to the scow, though."

"About fifty feet," calculated Andy. "I think we can wade most of the way. If we have to swim, a little ducking won't hurt us."

"All right, when you say the word. I'm ready," reported Phil.

"I say it right now," responded Andy. "Make straight for the center stern. No noise, now--here we go."

Andy stepped over the edge of the rude log raft which they had been two hours poling through the mazes of a swampy river stretch. Phil followed him promptly. They found the water up to their knees, and, where the weeds were sparse, up to their waists. At length they had covered all of the odd fifty feet between the raft and the yawl except about five yards of clear water space. Here they had to swim for it.

"Made it," breathed Andy softly, as, dripping but exultant, they both clambered aboard the scow and snuggled in among the hay, burrowing into it a few feet.

"I don't think anyone saw us," remarked Phil.

"Then we're safe for a free passage across the river," declared Andy.

The Concord boy had noticed the scow come across the river earlier in the day. The pilot to which it was attached by a stout cable was a large yawl, with three pairs of oars manned by stalwart redcoats. They had come across the stream to gather forage for their horses, selecting a spot where a coarse swamp hay grew thickly.

Andy had told Phil this back at the camp at Cambridge, and his comrade had made his arrangements accordingly. His commanding officer had given Phil a letter to deliver in Boston. Phil's Musket Boys chums had sent a cheering word to their parents, and, assuming their old civilian clothes, Phil and Andy had started out on the desperate enterprise of trying to rescue Mr. Warrington and his fellow prisoners from the hands of the British. Now they had made a favorable start in their project, and it looked very much as if the hardest part of their task, crossing the river to Boston, had been accomplished.

The boys lay snug and contented, conversing in whispers when there was occasion for talk. After a while the scow began to move. They gazed out from their screen of hay to watch the shore they had just left fade from view. There was slow and hampered progress when they met the strong central current of the broad Charles River. After that the scow proceeded steadily on its course. As it turned now and then they could make out the river docks and the lights of the city. Then the scow sided up against a wharf bulkhead and became motionless.

"What now?" inquired Phil of his companion.

"We seem to have arrived for good. The boat has brought us over. How are we going to leave it?"

"I'll reconnoitre a bit, I guess," answered Andy, and he began to cautiously work his way beyond the hay into the open starlight. Then he trod along the extreme edge of the well-loaded craft, and managed to reach the side of its deck without accident.

Andy took a look down the wharf, and then bobbed back quickly. He returned as fast as he could to Phil.

"The fellows in the pilot yawl have cut loose and are rowing up the river," he informed his chum, "but a new crowd of men has just come out from sheds in a big hay yard to unload. There may be twenty of them--big roystering fellows. They've got pitchforks, and will start right at work. Let's get out of this, Phil."

Andy at once led the way along his recent course, whispering his plan to Phil to spring up on the wharf and make a run for it. A high fence set back about four feet lined the wharf. It had no break for some distance.

"Come on now--hold on!" said Andy, peering past the side of the scow. "Thunder, Phil! smell that? see that?"

Smoke was what both boys instantly scented. A flare it was that dazzled their eyes. Loud shouts greeted their startled hearing. Some careless smoker among the unloading gang had set fire to the great load of hay.

"Jump!" said Phil quickly, giving Andy a push. "We can't be in a worse fix," and both landed on the planking of the wharf. As they did so, they fairly ran into two men retreating from the blaze. Both were armed with pitchforks.

"Hello," yelled one of them. "Smugglers!"

"Run for it," directed Phil, and down the wharf both put at their best pace. Andy turned his head to discover the two Tories in hot pursuit of them, as well yelling loudly for their comrades to join in the chase. Phil glanced ahead down the wharf, its location and outlines becoming suddenly familiar to him. As they dodged around a curve in the planking, Phil suddenly exclaimed!

"Andy, we're in a trap. If those fellows follow us, it's a sure capture unless we swim for it."

The Concord boy saw at a glance what Phil meant. A hundred feet further on the wharf ended, blocked squarely by the wall of a big brick warehouse.

"Now I know where we are," panted Phil. "You see that building? It's the old warehouse my father used to own before the Tories came and his business got bad. One of the Musket Boys told me that the redcoats had confiscated it to their own use for storage. Oh, Andy, I have an idea."

Whatever his idea, Phil did not pause to discuss it. He knew the old warehouse like a book. Many a gay ramble he had enjoyed over it from attic to cellar, and suddenly there had come to his mind a memory of its outlets where he had escaped playmates in games of hide and seek. Andy came to a sudden halt as Phil did--directly behind the warehouse where a hinged wooden grating covered some wharf subway. Phil pulled at this, and lifted it a few feet.

"Jump down," he ordered quickly. "Don't be afraid. I know what I am about," and Andy leaped boldly, and Phil after him, letting down the grating into place just in time.

They had landed on a hard clay surface. Holding their breath, they heard their pursuers running down the wharf. They came to a halt, blocked by the warehouse wall. Then the lurkers heard a man's voice ejaculate:

"Those two fellows have mysteriously disappeared."

"They must have jumped into the river and swum for it, then," came the response. "Come, they've slipped us, and we'd better get back to helping the others shove that blazing hay into the river."

Phil expressed a sigh of relief and his comrade nudged him with a chirping chuckle.

"What's next?" propounded Andy.

"We've got to get into the building," explained Phil, "and out upon the street."

"Can we do it?"

"I think I know a way, provided things are not too much changed around the old building since I was last here," said Phil. He groped about, located a break in the foundation of the warehouse, and a minute later he had hold of Andy's hand leading him in the darkness across a damp cellar. The boy located a door at its front end and pushed it open. They found themselves under some planking, crept along a few feet, and crawled up a slant of earth leading to the street.

Phil poked his head out and announced that it was safe to emerge from covert. They stood on a known street that was deserted, hurried to the next corner, and, gaining confidence as they got among houses and shops, felt that they were safe to go their way as unchallenged as the regular residents of the city.

"Where first, Phil?" inquired Andy.

"Home!" answered Phil promptly, and the eager, heartfelt ring in his voice made Andy think of Concord with a queer, longing thrill.

After that Phil said little or nothing. Andy was too absorbed in watching what was going on about him to notice at once the silent mood of his comrade, but finally he asked:

"What makes you so quiet, Phil?"

"The change," answered the Boston boy seriously. "It doesn't seem like the old town at all. It is so quiet and dreary. In the old springtimes like this the boys would be out playing Hunt the Grey or Pump Pump Peel Away, and the shops would be bright and cheery. See those redcoats parading everywhere, scaring women and children. There seems to be a blight and gloom on everything."

"There's your house, Phil," said Andy recognizing the Warrington home from his former visit to Boston.

"It doesn't look much like the bright, jolly old place, does it, now?" asked Phil, rather mournfully. "Just to think of the changes of a year--father out of business and a prisoner. Oh, it seems to me the whole city is in mourning."

"It won't be long, though," declared Andy. "Gen. Washington says he has come here to drive the redcoats out to sea, and we'll help him at it."

"The back way, Andy," said Phil, as they neared the house. "You know, it mustn't get around that I am home. There may be some neighbors in the house. It might reach the ears of the Tories, and they'd probably make no bones of shutting up the son of a rebel."

"And a continental soldier in the bargain," added Andy. "That's so, Phil. How will you keep from being recognized in the streets when you go around in daylight, though!"

"We must make some change in our looks. Here we are."

Phil had gone around to the kitchen door. He peeped in at a side window of the other part of the house. He saw some visitors in the sitting room. He knocked lightly at the kitchen door. Then, with a quick whisper to Andy, he pushed him forward. In a moment or two the kitchen door was opened. Phil's mother confronted Andy in the dark.

"Who is it?" she asked gently.

"Close the door for a moment, Mrs. Warrington, please, and come outside, will you? Don't be afraid--I'm Andy Sabine, from Concord."

"Why--" began Phil's mother in a fluttering whisper, but coming out upon the steps.

"Nobody must know that we are here, so don't betray us," went on Andy.

"We? us?" repeated the gentle lady.

"Yes, Mrs. Warrington. Phil is with me."

Phil stepped into view,--to be wrapped in the arms of his mother.

"My boy! my boy!" sobbed Mrs. Warrington, overcome with emotion. "My dear, loyal boy! The nation's boy, too, for we have heard of your bravery. Come in, come in!"

"No, mother, not until you have got rid of your visitors. No one must know that we are in Boston until we have had a chance to do what we came for," said Phil earnestly, "and that is to rescue father and his patriot friends from the British."