“Those lobsterbacks, boy! More boats arrived yesterday with their horses. They weren’t for the garrison at Number Four, they were dragoons coming this way with a warrant!” Ethan Allen urgently pointed to the southeast. A second cloud of dust could be seen now, moving rapidly toward them.
“We can hide,” Duncan suggested.
“No. My way’s better. Hide, and they’ll be searching the road for days, doubling back and hounding your tail.”
By the time the soldiers caught up with them, Allen had deployed their party across the landscape, stretching the chain of rods to its full length, then marking its spans with stakes. The big frontiersman had settled on a flat boulder with a ledger he produced from his saddlebag and was busily writing on its pages. He greeted the soldiers with careful disinteres
