through the doorway, "Shaughnessy," said he, "come out here quick; here are two recruities fer ye!"

Another tall man with sergeant's chevrons on his sleeves came to the doorway. The powder from his hair was still about his shoulders, and he was binding his queue with a black cord, holding the end of it in his mouth, and twisting the cord around and around until he deftly tied it with a jerk. Then he spoke over his companion's shoulders.

"Would yez enlist?" he said.

"If we were old enough," said William.

"Ah, they're brave lads," said the first speaker. "If there was more like thim I could go back to my Katherine at Bally Connor, and now we'll be kipt here until the saints only know whin, and probably will have to fight out in the howlin' wilderness."

"Come down and see us, bhoys," broke in the second speaker. Then he whispered, "Bring some of yer father's terbaccy, or a paper o' snuff. How's that, Gineral McCune?"

"Or a bottle of somethin' warmin'," suggested the other one.

The twins were too much depressed by the result of their meeting with Carter to appear amused. They simply turned and walked away, and after a stroll of an hour or so they arrived at Smith's Tavern again.

The hours passed quickly. At next sunrise the boys were dressing in their little room at the top of the house. William handed a coat to George. It was the one Aunt Clarissa had prepared for the journey.

Generally the old lady had endeavored to make some slight differences in the boys' garments, which was not noticeable at first glance, but was helpful in distinguishing them, provided each wore his own apparel.

George put on William's coat, but paused, with his arm half-way in the sleeve. "No, William, you ought to go," he said.

"Pray, it's settled," replied his brother. "When they find it out perhaps they will send me too."

"How about the scar?" said George, reading his brother's thoughts.

William made a sudden movement and extended his arm. Across the back of his left hand ran a large scar. He had hurt it years ago while playing with a sickle out at Stanham Mills. It showed quite plainly in a good strong light.

"Perhaps you had better go, after all," said George.

"Not a single step," replied his brother. "You know we never change when we once have drawn lots. I can keep my hand hidden easily enough. Besides, they have not thought of looking for a long time now."

This decided it, and with the exchange of coats the boys exchanged their names, as they had done on various occasions before.

All was bustle and confusion at the wharf where the Abel Trader lay.

Cato stood by trying hard to smile, but the tears were running down his cheeks and dropping from the point of his grizzled chin.

The tide and wind were ripe to swing the vessel out from shore; the last good-byes had been said. George was standing by Uncle Daniel on the deck. For some few minutes the twins had not been able to speak a word, for they would have cried hysterically, and they knew it well enough.

Suddenly William drew his hand across his eyes; Uncle Nathan started. There was the red scar!

The gang-plank was being drawn, and the old man staggered. "Stop there a minute!" he shouted, before the last cable was thrown off. "Stop there, I say!"

He rushed up the swaying plank to the deck, holding William by the arm, and fairly dragging him after him.

"You little villains!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, as he pushed up to where his brother Daniel and George were standing near the taffrail. He exchanged the boys much as one person would take one article in place of another, and did not even have time to reply to Uncle Daniel's astonished exclamation, but holding George as if he were afraid he would soar into the air, and with a grasp that made the boy wince with pain, he muttered beneath his breath, and fairly had to make a jump for it to regain the dock.

Once there, Uncle Nathan began to shake the boy so fiercely that his head almost flew off his shoulders.

The little brig swung slowly out, and her blocks grated as her yards were braced around. Then her jibs clattered up the forestays and she caught the wind.

Strange to say, if it had not been for Uncle Nathan's action on this day this story might never have been written.

CHAPTER V.

A BURST OF FLAME.

It was a rainy April day in New York. Three years had passed since the events of the last chapter. Promises of spring were to be seen on every hand. A few warm days had already started the leaf buds along the Bowery Lane; even a few blossoms had begun to show in the shrubbery in Ranleigh Gardens.

But the feeling of uneasiness in the colonies, due to the continued oppressions of Great Britain, was soon to be broken by a burst of flame.

New York was yet the most loyal city that the King held in America, but much indignation had been shown at the actions of the crown that were directed against Boston, and the latter city was on the verge of rebellion. Except for the excitement of the days when the long-expected tea was attempted to be landed in New York in April, when Captain Lockyer had returned to England with the tea-ships, their cargoes all intact, the year of '74 had passed without happenings of much moment.

But now it was the momentous year of '75, and many things had changed—changes in some respects hard to believe.

Poring over the books in a dingy shipping-office in a narrow side street off Mill Lane leaned a tall figure. Two years of this same kind of work had not impaired George's health in the least. Although now only sixteen, he looked years older, for he was tall and wonderfully developed, and the grave manner of speech and that strange dignity which the young Frothinghams possessed had not left him. From some ancestor the twins must have inherited immense natural strength, for George was as strong almost as the biggest porter in Mr. Wyeth's employ.

His clothes were neat, but were devoid of any attempt at lace or ornament. In fact, young Frothingham had quite a struggle at present to get along. His aunt sent him a little money from the proceeds of the grist-mill, for mining had now wholly ceased at Stanham Mills. This, with the pittance that Mr. Wyeth paid him for his services, had enabled him to secure a small room in the house of a good old Irish woman named Mrs. Mack, who washed clothes for the gentle folk.

Poor Uncle Nathan had been dead now two years or more, and George had been taken from school at a Mr. Anderson's, and placed in Mr. Wyeth's office.

Mr. Wyeth and George had grown apart in the last year. The latter always did his duty, but could not stand the tirades of the virulent Tory against a cause to which the boy now felt himself firmly united, for George, even against his will and inclination, had become converted to the side taken by the Sons of Liberty. Mr. Wyeth, over a year before this rainy April morning, had found that George had, as he expressed it, "gone entirely wrong," and after seeing remonstrance would be in vain, had ignored him altogether. If it were not for what he owed Uncle Daniel in London he would have discharged him from his service.

This would not have mattered much. But there was one sorrow that cut the younger Frothingham deeper and deeper every day. It was the tone of his brother's letters from England. Since the day upon the dock they had not seen each other. Long letters, however, passed between them every month.

So strongly had William felt upon the matter, and so frequently had he expressed himself angrily at the course of popular thought and action in the colonies, that George could never bring himself to take up the other side in his correspondence. There had never been a difference of opinion between them in their lives. So he had from the first ignored the question in his letters to his brother.

If, however, the trouble should blow over,