but found no signs. Some think he has gone up into the Welch Mountain;
but for my part, I should not be surprised if he were in this
neighborhood."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Barton, starting from his chair.

"Now's your chance," said Miss Betsy. "Git the young men together who
won't feel afraid o' bein' twenty ag'in one: you know the holes and
corners where he'll be likely to hide, and what's to hinder you from
ketchin' him?"

"But he must have many secret friends," said Martha, "if what I have
heard is true,--that he has often helped a poor man with the money which
he takes only from the rich. You know he still calls himself a Tory, and
many of those whose estates have been confiscated, would not scruple to
harbor him, or even take his money."

"Take his money. That's a fact," remarked Miss Betsy, "and now I dunno
whether I want him ketched. There's worse men goin' round, as
respectable as you please, stealin' all their born days, only cunnin'ly
jukin' round the law instead o' buttin' square through it. Why, old Liz
Williams, o' Birmingham, herself told me with her own mouth, how she was
ridin' home from Phildelphy market last winter, with six dollars, the
price of her turkeys--and General Washin'ton's cook took one of 'em, but
that's neither here nor there--in her pocket, and fearful as death when
she come to Concord woods, and lo and behold! there she was overtook by
a fresh-complected man, and she begged him to ride with her, for she had
six dollars in her pocket and Sandy was known to be about. So he rode
with her to her very lane-end, as kind and civil a person as she ever
see, and then and there he said, 'Don't be afeard, Madam, for I, which