may strive and suffer for an object, he usually sits quiet at the
consummation. Here we were in the door-yard of a peaceful cabin, the
ground frozen in lumps under our feet, and it seemed to me that the wind
had something to do with the lightness of the night.

"Davy," whispered Tom again, "how'd ye like to see the little feller to
home?"

I pinched him again, and harder this time, for I was at a loss for
adequate words. The muscles of his legs were as hard as the strands of a
rope, and his buckskin breeches frozen so that they cracked under my
fingers.

Suddenly a flickering light arose ahead of us, and another, and we saw
that they were candles beginning to twinkle through the palings of the
fort. These were badly set, the width of a man's hand apart. Presently
here comes a soldier with a torch, and as he walked we could see from
crack to crack his bluff face all reddened by the light, and so near were
we that we heard the words of his song:--

"O, there came a lass to Sudbury Fair,
With a hey, and a ho, nonny-nonny!
And she had a rose in her raven hair,
With a hey, and a ho, nonny-nonny!"

"By the etarnal!" said Tom, following the man along the palings with the
muzzle of his Deckard, "by the etarnal! 'tis like shootin' beef."

A gust of laughter came from somewhere beyond. The burly soldier paused
at the foot of the blockhouse.