At the appointed time, upon an autumnal morning, upward of thirty females assembled, from the precincts of Sing-Sing, Tarrytown, Sleepy-Hollow, and Weekersqueeke, all mounted on horseback, and eager for the enterprise. As captain of their company, they unanimously made choice of Jonas Orser's better half, a woman of undaunted resolution who ruled her own household and influenced her neighbor-hood. Placing herself at the head of her forces, she at once put them in motion, toward Arthur's Hamlet. For the first few miles, the march was uneventful, but at length they entered a district where they had never been before, and where from the number of the roads, and the distance of the farm houses from each other, they became be-wildered, and unable to proceed with any certainty. In this state of perplexity, they pulled up at a place where the high-way forked, and awaited the approach of some one, who might point out their proper route. Presently, a mounted traveler was seen approaching. As bad luck would have it, this was Arthur himself, who, a short time previously, had taken his departure from home, on a journey. When he came up, his surprise at the appearance of the cavalcade grew into astonishment, when the captain of the band in-quired of him the way that most directly led to John Arthur's habitation. Arthur was a wary man, seldom off his guard,

Chapter I

38 THE MCDONALD PAPERS

and before he gave the tea hunters a direct answer, had the address to draw from them to object of their visit. He then accompanied them a short distance, and after having care-fully indicated to them, the most circuitous of all the routes that led to his domicile, he himself took the shortest direction back, in order to put his castle in a posture of defense.