“So I thought, sir, and that is the reason I was so eager to see the interior of the fort.”
After he had asked a few questions, General Greene told Dick he might go, but that any further information he could secure would be appreciated.
“I’ll reconnoiter the fort to-night,” said Dick. “I may be able to learn something further.”
Dick then rejoined his comrades, and told them the story of his adventure at the fort. They listened with interest, and uttered exclamations of wonder.
“Sure an’ they came moighty near to grabbin’ ye, thot toime, Dick,” said Tim Murphy.
“Yah, dot is so,” nodded Fritz Schmockenburg.
“But I was able to get a look at the interior of the fort,” said Dick, “and that was worth while.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Ben Foster. “Of course, you saw nothing of Tom?”
“No. If he is there, he was in a building somewhere, and so I would not have seen him.”
They talked about the adventure quite a while, and were agreed that Dick had acted in a daring manner in venturing into the fort.
“That was the only way I could secure any information regarding the arrangements of the buildings within the enclosure,” said Dick.
After supper, Dick again set out. He made his way at a moderate pace, and finally reached the edge of the open ground shortly after dark. He stopped just within the edge of the forest and looked across at the fort for a few minutes. Then he began making his way toward the fort, slowly.
It was a rather dark night, and he could just make out the fort, looking like a faint shadow, and he felt certain that the sentinels could not see him.
He was at the wall of the fort in about fifteen or twenty minutes, and began making his way along it, feeling for a place where he could climb to the top, as Ben said he had done.
He had nearly reached the corner of the enclosure when he heard a commotion within the enclosure. The sound of excited voices came to him, and the clatter of weapons, and then he heard a noise above his head. He looked upward quickly, and as he did so, a human form came over the top of the wall and dropped down, striking Dick and knocking him to the ground.
Tom Dare did not like the idea of being a prisoner in the hands of the British, but he was in what seemed to be a pretty strongly-built building, and his chances of getting out seemed pretty slim. And even if he were to get out of the building, he would have difficulty in getting out of the enclosure.