herself. The inn master came forward to take her horse; but she shook her head.
"Nay, I tarry but to leave a message with you. It is this: Mistress Hicks's mother—I know not her name—said to tell you the pewter service to melt into bullets be ready for you and that you are to get word to Captain Littell that the new uniforms, together with the silver, be ready for him. There"—Mehitable knitted her brows—"I think that was all!"
Master Gifford threw back his head to laugh. "That old lady be as smart as any! And to think she feigned daftness so well that her own daughter, a shrew if I know one, believed her to be daft!"
"Aye, a clever one, she!" agreed Mehitable. She wheeled her horse. Already the spring dusk was deepening into darkness. "But now I give ye good-night, sir!"
Before the good innkeeper could protest or offer her an escort, she had galloped off up Broad Street, past the Green with its space for military training, past the triangular plot of land given over to the farmers and known as the marketplace, to turn eastward on Bridge Street, though the bridge over the Passaic River had been missing since that November night when, in a retreat, the Americans had burned it behind them, thus gaining a few days respite in Newark before marching on to Elizabeth Town, while the British, fuming and helpless, had been forced to bivouac upon the other shore.
Arrived at the river front and pausng to gaze around at her lonely surroundings, she found the Indian un-
