I caught the tent flap and held it down. “Don’t make a sound!” I said. “I don’t want a sound from anyone. There are people in Albany whose lives depend on your keeping quiet!”

Marie de Sabrevois moved back from between Doc and me. When I turned from her to tie the tent flap shut, she laughed a little. “I do believe,” she said to Nathaniel, “it’s your brother Peter!”

Nathaniel came to me, frowning almost grotesquely.

“That’s right,” I told him. “She’s right.”

“For God’s sake!” Nathaniel exclaimed. “For God’s sake!”

Then, comprehending the expression of his face, I knew he took me for a spy, inside the British lines. “Nathaniel,” I said, “we’ve been prisoners of western Indians all winter. We’re on our way to our own people if we can get to them. I don’t know why you’re here. I won’t ask any questions about that; but I want you to come back with me.”

“You’ve been prisoners of western Indians,” he said in a bewildered voice. “But I was told—I heard—–”

“I know what you heard,” I said. “It was a mistake.” I glanced at Marie de Sabrevois. She had the look of a cat watching a bird in the grass.

“I want to make this all clear,” I said hurriedly, well aware that I must either lie or use force; aware, too, that the use of force would help me none with Nathaniel. I’d remembered something Joseph Phipps had told me on the night when he first talked to me in the village of the Sacs, and I thought that now I might use it for our present preservation.

“Just by chance,” I said, “I came across a letter, hidden near Bouquet River. It had the name of two hundred Albany Tories in it—Tories that might join the British army if it ever got as far as Albany. I want it understood that this letter has been sent forward. If we reach Ticonderoga safely, it’ll go no farther. If we don’t reach Ticonderoga, I wouldn’t give a dollar for the lives of all two hundred.”

I was pleased at this lie. It had so much the sound of truth that it cheered me and gave me as much confidence as though it had indeed been true. And there was enough truth in it, I knew, to keep Marie de Sabrevois quiet.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathaniel said.

“I know that, Nathaniel. I speak of it only so that we may have a chance of getting to Ticonderoga. You’ll take that chance with us, won’t you? Don’t answer quickly.”

I went to Ellen and took her by the shoulders. “You’re all right?” I asked, and the feel of her set me to shaking inside, a strange and disturbing sensation. She looked at me and nodded slowly.