“It’s pretty serious business,” Nason went on. “If we get whipped, we’re rebels, and rebels pretty often have their last words with the hangman; so those in charge of things aren’t going to let anybody even talk about being whipped. If they do any hanging they’ve got to hang us all, because we’re all going to hang together. Everybody’s got to be a Patriot or get out. There’s some sense in it, too. If it came to hanging, and there were Loyalists still living everywhere, the Loyalists would probably help to hang everyone else, wouldn’t they?”

Cap Huff wagged his head. “You got to meet a few Tories before you know how people feel about ’em. Why, over around Albany there’s so many of ’em that they go prowling through the woods, skinning Patriots and making saddlebags out of the skins to sell in New York. That’s why we ain’t going back to Quebec by way of Albany. Winooski River and St. John’s: that’s the route we got to take, on account of those damned Loyalists or Tories or whatever you want to call ’em.”

“But my father’s no Loyalist!” I told them. “Why, he’s no more of a Loyalist than I am.”

The two men were silent, staring into their empty tumblers. Nathaniel looked in the pitcher and laughed: then went to the dining-room and took the rum bottle from the sideboard.

I knew what was on their minds, so I added hastily, “I’ve been aching to get home and fight the British ever since I heard Burgoyne was going to use Hessians and Indians against us.”

Nason and his huge companion stared at me, their mouths wide open.

Nathaniel added a tot of rum to all our tumblers. “I’m with Peter,” he said. “I’ll go wherever Peter goes. That ought to settle my father’s case.”

What he said made me feel better than any amount of rum. For months I had fretted over his perverse admiration for the British, and then been in a stew for fear he might become infatuated with Marie de Sabrevois; and finally I had worried myself sick at what might happen to my father and mother and sisters if he persisted in his determination to be what he called logical about everything. Now he had committed himself; and my relief was such that I could have forgiven even Theodore Lyman.

“There you are,” I said to Nason, who was peering into my face as though he doubted his own senses. “If anyone in this family’s a Loyalist, you’re one too.”

“Burgoyne!” Nason whispered. “Burgoyne! And he’ll use Hessians!”

“And Indians. Five thousand Indians. God knows where he’ll get that many, but they say he’s got ’em!”