We took him off the horse and laid him beside the fire. He was young, about Nathaniel’s age, but painfully thin. His eyes were sunken, and his cheeks had fallen in, so there was something about his head that put me in mind of a bird’s skull. Yet his face, under the grime and tear-streaks on it, was smoothly brown, and his eyebrows were thin and arched, so that even in his pitiful condition he had a look of distinction.

Cap was puzzled by him. “Picked him up in the woods,” he told us. “There he was, all alone, a thousand miles from nowhere, just lying beside the path like he was dead.” He shook his head, adding: “No food; no blanket; not even any money.”

“How do you know he didn’t have any money?” Nason asked.

Cap looked hurt and tapped Doc’s shoulder. “What’s the matter with him?”

“I’d say he was starved,” Doc said. “Starved and tuckered.” Almost hopefully he added, “Maybe I’ll find something else the matter with him when there ain’t so many folks around, and I get a chance to look at him.”

Tom Bickford pointed to the young man’s knees. The breeches over them were torn; and under the holes the skin was raw. We saw, then, that his palms were raw as well.

“Well, now,” Doc said, “that boy must have been anxious to get somewhere! He’s been crawling!”

He knelt stiffly to fumble at the boy’s legs. “Ankle. Sprained.” He pawed at him again: then sank back on his heels to look up at us. “Both ankles! Both ankles sprained.”

We poured rum and milk into him, and peeled off his Indian leggins and moccasins, while Doc began to feel, knead, and poke the two sprained ankles. When he groaned, we gave him more rum and milk. Doc worked on, pulling at his heels and twisting his toes; and in half an hour the boy was sitting up, taking all the rabbit stew we would give him: clamoring for more, too, and filling out under our eyes.

His name, he said, was Verrieul—Joseph Marie Verrieul, and he had been in the army on Dorchester Heights. When the British left Boston, his regiment and nine others had marched for New York. By the time he reached New London, he was, as he put it, very much beat out. Consequently he signed aboard a privateer brig that sailed from New London on the night of his arrival.

“A privateer!” Cap Huff protested. “What about your regiment?”