“Mebbe I can get you a hoss, yonder,” said Meadows.  “An’ I reckon I can row you round an’ acrost, ‘thout their plaguey ships a-spyin’ us.”

“Then, by the Lord,” said Philip, while Meadows began letting himself down the side of the wharf to the skiff which he knew rode there upon the black water, “’tis enough to make one believe in miracles, my running into you!  What were you doing out so late?”

“Mum, sir!  I was jest back from the same camp you’re bound fur.  ‘Tain’t five minutes since I crawled up out o’ this yer skift.”

“What!  And did you meet a party going the other way—­toward our camp, I mean?”

“Ay,” replied Meadows, standing up in the boat and guiding the legs of Philip as the latter descended from the wharf.  “I watched ’em from the patch o’ woods beyont Westervelt’s.  I took ’em to be Major Lee’s men, or mebbe yours, from their caps and plumes; but I dunno:  I couldn’t see well.  But if they was goin’ to the Morristown camp, they was goin’ by a roundabout way, fur they took the road to the right, at the fork t’other side o’ them woods!”

“Good, if ’twas a British troop indeed!  If I take the short road, I may beat ’em.  Caps and plumes like ours, eh!  Here, I’ll pull an oar, too; and for God’s sake keep clear of the British ships.”

“Trust me, cap’n.  I guess they ain’t shifted none since I come acrost awhile ago.  I’ll land yuh nearest where we can get the hoss I spoke of.  ’Tis the beast ’ut brung me from the camp—­but mum about that.”  The two men moved at the oars, and the boat shot out from the sluggish dock-water to the live current, down which it headed.  “Don’t you consarn yerse’f about them ships—­’tis the dark o’ the moon an’ a cloudy night, an’ as fur our course, I could smell it out, if it come to that!”

They rounded the end of the town, and turned into the Hudson, gliding black over the surface of blackness.  They pulled for some distance against the stream, so as to land far enough above our post at Paulus Hook.  Going ashore in a little cove apparently well-known to Meadows, they drew up the boat, and hastened inland.  Meadows had led the way about half a mile, when a dark mass composed of farmhouse and outbuildings loomed up before them.

“Here’s where the hoss is; Pete Westervelt takes keer of him,” whispered the watchman, and strode, not to the stables, but to the door of what appeared to be an outer kitchen, which he opened with a key of his own.  A friendly whinny greeted him from the narrow dark space into which he disappeared.  He soon came out, leading the horse he used in his journeys to and from the American camp, and bearing saddle and bridle on his arm.  The two men speedily adjusted these, whereupon Philip mounted.

“Bring or send the beast back by night,” said Meadows, handing over the key, with which he had meanwhile relocked the door of his improvised stable.  “Hoss-flesh is damn’ skeerce these times.”  This was the truth, the needs of the armies having raised the price of a horse to a fabulous sum.