He considered the better strategy would be to wait where he was, where
the three roads met, and allow the enemy himself to disclose his
position. To the scout this course was most distasteful. He assured
himself that this was so because, while it were the safer course, it
wasted time and lacked initiative. But in his heart he knew that was not
the reason, and to his heart his head answered that when one's country
is at war, when fields and firesides are trampled by the iron heels of
the invader, a scout should act not according to the dictates of his
heart, but in the service of his native land. In the case of this
particular patriot, the man and scout were at odds. As one of the
Bicycle Squad of the Boston Corps of Cadets, the scout knew what, at
this momentous crisis in her history, the commonwealth of Massachusetts
demanded of him. It was that he sit tight and wait for the hated
foreigners from New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut to show
themselves. But the man knew, and had known for several years, that on
the road to Carver was the summer home of one Beatrice Farrar. As
Private Lathrop it was no part of his duty to know that.
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