"I stood within arm's reach of you that night," said I; and from that I
hastened swiftly through the story of my trial as a spy and what it came
to in the morning, and never mentioned Margery's part in it at all.
"You have a bitter enemy in Frank Falconnet," was his comment, when I
had made an end of this recounting of my adventures. "He knows you are
in hiding hereabouts, and has been scouring the neighborhood well for
you--or, more belike, for both of us."
"How do you know this?" I asked.
"I have both seen and heard. This den of ours opens on the river's edge,
and, two days since, his Indians came within an ace of nabbing me. 'Twas
just at dusk, and I made out to dodge them by doubling past in the
canoe."
"But you say you have heard, as well?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Don't ask me, Jack."
I said I had no right to ask more than he chose to tell; and at this he
blurted out an oath and let me have the sharp-edged truth.
"Falconnet has an ally whose wit is shrewder than his. Can you guess who
it is?"
"No."
"'Tis this same Madge Stair you have been defending, Jack," he said,
bitterly. "It seems that Falconnet made sure we had both gone to join
the army, which was but natural. If she were less than the spiteful
little Tory vixen that she is, she would have been content to let it
rest so. But she would not let it rest so. With her own lips she assured
Falconnet he still had us to reckon with; nay, more--she made a boast of
it that we would never go so far away from her.
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