Cap Huff had his great idea the very day Burgoyne signed the Convention which made prisoners of every Britisher, every Hessian, every Canadian, every Indian and every camp follower remaining in the proud army that had set out from Canada against our rabble four long months ago. The news of the surrender, in some mysterious way, seemed to reach, in a moment’s time, not only the American regiments gathered around the Heights, but the scattered militia companies that wandered on the outskirts of the army, making nuisances of themselves. Even the countryfolk in all the scattered farm houses, cabins and settlements on both sides of the river within a score of miles knew, as if by magic, that Burgoyne had signed the Convention, and that all his army was to be marched at once to Boston and there embarked for England, never more to fight against Americans. What they couldn’t know was that Congress would refuse to abide by the Convention, and that this wretched army was doomed to wander for four long years among the hills of Virginia, starved, penniless, ragged, despised, and hating from the bottom of their hearts a Congress and a people so regardless of justice and honor.

No sooner had the news reached us than Cap Huff smote his thigh a resounding thwack. “Look here!” he said. “If these Britishers and their camp followers are marched to Boston, they’ll march together, won’t they, and they won’t have no guns nor nothing, will they?”

We agreed that this would unquestionably be the case.

“Well, then,” Cap said, “our problem ain’t nothing but a military one, kind of, like the way I got that keg of wine up at St. Mary’s, or like you’d get chickens out of a henhouse without nobody thinking about it.”

We stared at him.

“Listen, Stevie!” Cap said. “You remember St. Mary’s, don’t you? I started a fight out in front of a tavern, and when everybody run out of the tavern to see what was happening, I slipped around to the back door, all quiet and peaceable, and helped myself to the keg, didn’t I? You’d ought to know! You must ’a’ drunk about three gallons out of it!”

“What’s St. Mary’s got to do with Nathaniel Merrill?” Nason asked.

Cap made sounds of exasperation. “This here! All we got to do is keep watch on the British camp followers till we find Nathaniel Merrill. When we find him, I’ll start a fight; and when everybody runs to look at it, the way everybody always does when a fight starts, you can grab Nathaniel and anyone else you want. Then when the fight’s over, Nathaniel won’t be there. He’ll be gone, with you. Nobody won’t know nothing about him, and nobody won’t be able to stop and inquire, on account of having business down east in Boston.”