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"And you an' me an' Brundage, we saved bits of bread and dropped it when we'd go by. Hungry we'd go to scatter it around that old lumber pile. He crawled out nights to get it. He watched days, too, and put our faces down in his head—watched an' saw who dropped the food, an' knew by that who'd saved him from the lime-hole. An', Tom, we know he never forgets.

"That morning a year an' more after, when we were breaking rock up the creek for a road—of a sudden he comes out o' nowhere, with his hands on that soldier's neck. Not a shot or a squeak! For weeks, Tom, he'd been waiting, watching for a chance to get us off. That's his way. He took off that soldier's clothes an' put 'em on himself. He took that soldier's musket and marched us off. Guards saw us from a distance and thought all was well. When we were in the woods he got out the chisels and a hammer.

"We cheated life, us fellows, all of us. She's tried to even up, but we got the best of her that day.

"He showed us the way back through the bush, an' fifteen miles up the beach where his schooner was, an' we were free men!