The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope Page A

Featherstone say he thought it was a perfectly real message?"
    "Yes, he said that."
    "Then what in tunket are you worrying about? Suppose it is easy! Peaceable Sherwood would have to make it easy anyway, wouldn't he, if this Jasper Twill is as simple-minded as you say he is?"
    "Simple-minded, yes — but not this simple-minded."
    "Now you see here, Dick!" Colonel Van Spurter stepped back from the table with the air of a man putting an end to all further discussion. "I can't waste any more of my good time sitting around here fretting over what's simple-minded and what isn't. Are you coming, or aren't you? If you're frightened, say so, and I'll take all the men and go by myself."
    "You can unfortunately do what you like with your own men, Colonel Van Spurter. But I want it clearly understood here and now that not one of mine is going to stir on any such expedition."
    "Permit me to remind you, Colonel Grahame, that I am your superior officer — or will be the moment General Washington sets foot in this house."
    "But until that moment comes, sir, you are not my superior officer, and have no right whatever to give orders either to me or to any troops General Washington may have put in my charge."
    Colonel Van Spurter may have been a fool, but at least he was not the sort of fool who does not know when he is defeated. Snatching up his hat and cloak, he strode quivering with rage across the room to the door, and turned to pause dramatically on the threshold.
    "Two hours ago, you'd have been lucky to escape from this business without losing your command, Dick," he said, between his teeth. "Now, you'll be lucky if you escape from it without getting shot for your cowardice."
    "Shut the door as you go out," said Dick wearily.
    The door slammed, and Colonel Van Spurter's voice was raised in the hall outside, issuing orders that gradually died away in a trampling of feet and clatter of horses' hoofs. Then from the distant camp in the South Meadow there stole up on the drowsy afternoon air a sudden murmur of activity, so faint that it could hardly have been heard by any ears less accustomed to it than mine. Colonel Van Spurter's fifty men had mounted and were riding out by the lower meadow-gate.
    Dick paid no attention whatever. He was sitting at the table with his head in his hands, studying the cipher letter again. I watched him in silence for a moment, and then rose quietly to go away and leave him to himself. As I paused on my way to the kitchen to clear away the litter which Colonel Van Spurter had left in the fruit dish, he looked up at me and said suddenly, "Do you think I was right, Eleanor?"
    "Of course you were right!" I retorted scornfully. "And only a fool who didn't know Peaceable Sherwood could have supposed you weren't right for an instant."
    "I'm not so certain, Eleanor. Perhaps I've been fighting with Peaceable for so long now that I'm beginning to jump at my own shadow. After all, it may be Sputters who's right — we all agreed it had to be a very simple cipher, and — "
    I put down the fruit dish on the sideboard once more. My hands were suddenly beginning to shake and I was afraid I might drop it. "Say that again!" I interrupted him sharply.
    "What? You mean about its having to be a very simple — "
    "But that's just it!" I cried. "Oh, Dick, can't you see that's exactly the reason? Look! You're Peaceable Sherwood. You have to send an important message in cipher to a loyal but not very intelligent member of your gang. You can't make it too hard, or he won't understand it. At the same time, you're afraid of making it too easy because there's just a chance that it might fall into the wrong hands. So what do you do?" I went to him and caught him by the shoulder, fairly shaking it in my eagerness and excitement. "You put in a blazing great false message along with the real one, on purpose to hit the wrong reader crack in the eye, and send him dashing madly off in the wrong direction without looking any further. Dick, I