“Look here,” I said. “You haven’t any such idea in your head, have you? They can’t win! Nobody that knows the size of this country would think for a minute that a few thousand Englishmen and Germans can take it and hold it, not if we don’t want ’em to! They can’t take it and hold it any more than they could take and hold the Atlantic Ocean! I’ve been out to the westward—I’ve seen more of it than most. You could drop the whole of England into the middle of it, and she’d be like an acorn dropped on Mount Agamenticus! You don’t think that—–”

Cap interrupted me. “Shut up! Can’t you see I’m trying to think? You don’t have to argue with me about who’s going to win this war, because I got to keep right on fighting in it, no matter who wins. Stevie says I got to, and I will. I ain’t going to do nothing to get Stevie mad, because he’s a terrible feller when he gets mad, which ain’t often. Stevie says the British’ll overreach themselves, sooner or later, like all Englishmen, and then we’ll give ’em a crack in the eye; but I don’t know nothing about it. All I know is, I got to go on fighting. Now wait a minute: what’s this Marie de Sabrevois doing with the British army?”

In my relief at having somebody to whom I could talk about Nathaniel the words burst from me in a flood. “She’s a British spy. She’s got her claws on Nathaniel, and she’s trying to turn him to the British. So far she hasn’t done it. He thinks he’s in love with her, Cap, and she’s tolling him along. He can’t get away, no more than a drake can get away from a live decoy. She’s planning to use him somehow. I can’t sleep for trying to figure what to do about it. I can’t figure it out. He’s my young brother. If anything happens, he’ll be called a spy and a deserter. I just can’t find the answer! He’s a fine boy, Cap. He’s no traitor. He thinks he’s doing what’s right. He’s—–”