They were dangerous words. “Thinking about independence, you mean,” Duncan said.
Allen threw up his hands in mock alarm. “I never said that. You be the traitor, McCallum, not me. I’m just talking about the honor of a free man.”
Duncan rode on in silence, digesting Allen’s words. In the British world, treason meant acts on behalf of a foreign king, almost always that of France. But in America there were new possibilities, acts against a king that would have been inconceivable, even impossible, in Europe. The honor of a free man. Surely that was not inconsistent with loyalty to a king.
The honor of a free manThey hurried up, then down a ridge, across the shallow river Allen had described to their party, then dismounted under a canopy of huge maples by a lazy stream. A hundred yards away,
