_A Clever Stratagem_ Six days out from the Capes of Delaware Bay, and the Ranger was cruising between Halifax and Boston, about one hundred leagues east of Cape Sable.

If there be truth in the maxim that a ship is never fit for action until she has been a week at sea, the Ranger might be considered as ready for any emergency now.

The crew had thoroughly learned their stations; they and the officers had become acquainted with each other; the possibilities of the ship in different weather, and on various points of sailing, had been ascertained.

The drill at quarters twice daily, and the regular target practice with great guns, and the exercises with small arms, had materially developed the offensive and defensive possibilities of the ship.
The already warm friendship between Seymour and Talbot, now thrown into close association by the necessary confinement of a small ship, had grown into an intimacy, and they held many discussions concerning their absent friends in the long hours of the night watches.

Talbot had learned through common rumor before they sailed, that Colonel Wilton would probably be sent to England with Lord Dunmore, whose retirement, under the vigorous policy pursued by the Virginians under the leadership of Patrick Henry, who had been elected governor, was inevitable; and he did not doubt but that Katharine would accompany her father.