"The Bourbon Prince, a serious-minded man, felt the truth of all this and was at pains to come to my venerable friend and heartily express his appreciation.

"'We know that we are in a bad way, but we know not how to get out of it,' he said.

"The Princess, who sat near us at table, asked the Doctor for information about the American woman.

"'"She riseth while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens,"' he quoted. 'She is apt to be more industrious than her husband. She works all day and often a part of the night. She is weaver, knitter, spinner, tailor, cook, washerwoman, teacher, doctor, nurse. While she is awake her hands are never idle, and their most important work is that of slowly building up the manhood of America. Ours is to be largely a mother-made land.'

"'Mon Dieu! I should think she would be cross with so much to do,' said the Princess.

"'Often she is a little cross,' Franklin answered. 'My friend, James Otis of Massachusetts, complained of the fish one day at dinner when there was company at the table. Mrs. Otis frankly expressed her opinion of his bad manners. He was temperamental and himself a bit overworked. He made no answer, but in the grace which followed the meal he said:

"'"O Lord, we thank Thee that we have been able to finish this dinner without getting slapped."

"'But I would ask Your Highness to believe that our men are mostly easier to get along with. They do not often complain of the food. They are more likely to praise it.'

"On our way back to Paris the Doctor said to me:

"'The great error of Europe is entailment—entailed estates, entailed pride, entailed luxury, entailed conceit. A boy who inherits honor will rarely honor himself. I like the method of China, where honor ascends, but does not descend. It goes back to his parents who taught him his virtues. It can do no harm to his parents, but it can easily ruin him and his children. I regard humility as one of the greatest virtues.'"



2

"That evening our near neighbors, Le Compte de Chaumont and M. LeVilleard, came to announce that a dinner and ball in honor of Franklin would occur at the palace of Compte de Chaumont less than a week later.

"'My good friends,' said the philosopher, 'I value these honors which are so graciously offered me, but I am old and have much work to do. I need rest more than I need the honors.'

"'It is one of the penalties of being a great savant that people wish to see and know him,' said the Count. 'The most distinguished people in France will be among those who do you honor. I think, if you can recall a talk we had some weeks ago, you will wish to be present.'

"'Oh, then, you have heard from the Hornet.'

"'I have a letter here which you may read at your convenience.'

"'My dear friend, be pleased to receive my apologies and my hearty thanks,' said Franklin. 'Not even the gout could keep me away.'

"Next day I received a formal invitation to the dinner and ball. I told the Doctor that in view of the work to be done, I would decline the invitation. He begged me not to do it and insisted that he was counting upon me to represent the valor and chivalry of the New World; that as I had grown into the exact stature of Washington and was so familiar with his manners and able to imitate them in conversation, he wished me to assume the costume of our Commander-in-Chief. He did me the honor to say:

"'There is no other man whom it would be safe to trust in such an exalted role. I wish, as a favor to me, you would see what can be done at the costumer's and let me have a look at you.'

"I did as he wished. The result was an astonishing likeness. I dressed as I had seen the great man in the field. I wore a wig slightly tinged with gray, a blue coat, buff waistcoat and sash and sword and the top boots and spurs. When I strode across the room in the masterly fashion of our great Commander, the Doctor clapped his hands.

"'You are as like him as one pea is like another!' he exclaimed. 'Nothing would so please our good friends, the French, who have an immense curiosity regarding Le Grand Vasanton, and it will give me an opportunity to instruct them as to our spirit.'

"He went to his desk and took from a drawer a cross of jeweled gold on a long necklace of silver—a gift from the King—and put it over my head so that the cross shone upon my breast.

"'That is for the faith of our people,' he declared. 'The guests will assemble on the grounds of the Count late in the afternoon. You will ride among them on a white horse. A beautiful maiden in a white robe held at the waist with a golden girdle will receive you. She will be Human Liberty. You will dismount and kneel and kiss her hand. Then the Prime Minister of France will give to each a blessing and to you a sword and a purse. You will hold them up and say:

"'"For these things I promise you the friendship of my people and their prosperity."

"'You will kiss the sword and hang it beside your own and pass the purse to me and then I shall have something to say.'

"So it was all done, but with thrilling details, of which no suspicion had come to me. I had not dreamed, for instance, that the King and Queen would be present and that the enthusiasm would be so great. You will be able to judge of my surprise when, riding my white horse through the cheering crowd, throwing flowers in my way, I came suddenly upon Margaret Hare in the white robe of Human Liberty. Now facing me after these years of trial, her spirit was equal to her part. She was like unto the angel I had seen in my dreams. The noble look of her face thrilled me. It was not so easy to maintain the calm dignity of Washington in that moment. I wanted to lift her in my arms and hold her there, as you may well believe, but, alas, I was Washington! I dismounted and fell upon one knee before her and kissed her hand not too fervently, I would have you know, in spite of my temptation. She stood erect, although tears were streaming down her cheeks and her dear hand trembled when it rested on my brow and she could only whisper the words:

"'May the God of your fathers aid and keep you.'

"The undercurrent of restrained emotion in this little scene went out to that crowd, which represented the wealth, beauty and chivalry of France. I suppose that some of them thought it a bit of good acting. These people love the drama as no others love it. I suspect that many of the friends of Franklin knew that she who was Liberty was indeed my long lost love. A deep silence fell upon them and then arose a wild shout of approval that seemed to come out of the very heart of France and to be warm with its noble ardor. Every one in this beautiful land—even the King and Queen and their kin—are thinking of Liberty and have begun to long for her blessing. That, perhaps, is why the scene had so impressed them.

"But we were to find in this little drama a climax wholly unexpected by either of us and of an importance to our country which I try in vain to estimate. When the Prime Minister handed the purse to Franklin he bade him open it. This the latter did, finding therein letters of credit for the three million livres granted, of which we were in sore need. With it was the news that a ship would be leaving Boulogne in the morning and that relays on the way had been provided for his messenger. The invention of our beloved diplomat was equal to the demand of the moment and so he announced:

"'Washington is like his people. He turns from all the loves of this world to obey the call of duty. My young friend who has so well presented the look and manner of Washington will now show you his spirit.'

"He looked at his watch and added:

"'Within forty minutes he will be riding post to Boulogne, there to take ship for America.'

"So here I am on the ship L'Etoile and almost in sight of Boston harbor, bringing help and comfort to our great Chief.

"I was presented to the King and Queen. Of him I have written—a stout, fat-faced man, highly colored, with a sloping forehead and large gray eyes. His coat shone with gold embroidery and jeweled stars. His close-fitting waistcoat of milk white satin had golden buttons and a curve which was not the only sign he bore of rich wine and good capon. The queen was a beautiful, dark-haired lady of some forty years, with a noble and gracious countenance. She was clad in no vesture of gold, but in sober black velvet. Her curls fell upon the loose ruff of lace around her neck. There were no jewels on or about her bare, white bosom. Her smile and gentle voice, when she gave me her bon-voyage and best wishes for the cause so dear to us, are jewels I shall not soon forget.

"Yes, I had a little talk with Margaret and her mother, who walked with me to Franklin's house. There, in his reception room, I took a good look at the dear girl, now more beautiful than ever, and held her to my heart a moment.

"'I see you and then I have to go,' I said.

"'It is the fault of my too romantic soul,' she answered mournfully. 'For two days we have been in hiding here. I wanted to surprise you.'

"And this protest came involuntarily from my lips:

"'Here now is the happiness for which I have longed, and yet forthwith I must leave it. What a mystery is the spirit of man!'

"'When it is linked to the spirit of God it ceases to understand itself,' she answered. 'Oh, that I had the will for sacrifice which is in you!'

"She lifted the jeweled cross I wore to her lips and kissed it. I wish that I could tell you how beautiful she looked then. She is twenty-six years old and her womanhood is beginning.

"'Now you may go,' she said. 'My heart goes with you, but I fear that we shall not meet again.'

"'Why ?' was my question.

"'I am utterly discouraged.'

"'You can not expect her to wait for you any longer. It is not fair,' said her mother.

"'Margaret, I do not ask you to wait,' I said. 'I am not quite a human being. I seem to have no time for that. I am of the army of God. I shall not expect you to wait.'

"So it befell that the stern, strong hand of a soldier's duty drew me from her presence almost as soon as we had met I kissed her and left her weeping, for there was need of haste. Soon I was galloping out of Passy on my way to the land I love. I try not to think of her, but how can I put out of mind the pathos of that moment? Whenever I close my eyes I see her beautiful figure sitting with bowed head in the twilight."



CHAPTER XXVI

IN WHICH APPEARS THE HORSE OF DESTINY AND THE JUDAS OF WASHINGTON'S ARMY

In Boston harbor, Jack learned of the evacuation of Philadelphia by the British and was transferred to a Yankee ship putting out to sea on its way to that city. There he found the romantic Arnold, crippled by his wounds, living in the fine mansion erected by William Penn. He had married a young daughter of one of the rich Tory families, for his second wife, and was in command of the city. Colonel Irons, having delivered the letters to the Treasurer of the United States, reported at Arnold's office. It was near midday and the General had not arrived. The young man sat down to wait and soon the great soldier drove up with his splendid coach and pair. His young wife sat beside him. He had little time for talk. He was on his way to breakfast. Jack presented his compliments and the good tidings which he had brought from the Old Country. Arnold listened as if he were hearing the price of codfish and hams.

The young man was shocked by the coolness of the Commandant. The former felt as if a pail of icy water had been thrown upon him, when Arnold answered:

"Now that they have money I hope that they will pay their debt to me."

This kind of talk Jack had not heard before. He resented it but answered calmly: "A war and an army is a great extravagance for a young nation that has not yet learned the imperial art of gathering taxes. Many of us are going unpaid but if we get liberty it will be worth all it costs."

"That sounds well but there are some of us who are also in need of justice," Arnold answered as he turned away.

"General, you who have not been dismayed by force will never, I am sure, surrender to discouragement," said Jack.

The fiery Arnold turned suddenly and lifting his cane in a threatening manner said in a loud voice:

"Would you reprimand me—you damned upstart?"

"General, you may strike me, if you will, but I can not help saying that we young men must look to you older ones for a good example."

Very calmly and politely the young man spoke these words. He towered above the man Arnold in spirit and stature. The latter did not commit the folly of striking him but with a look of scorn ordered him to leave the office.

Jack obeyed the order and went at once to call upon his old friend, Governor Reed. He told the Governor of his falling out with the Major-General.

"Arnold is a sordid, selfish man and a source of great danger to our cause," said the Governor. "He is vain and loves display and is living far beyond his means. To maintain his extravagance he has resorted to privateering and speculation, and none of it has been successful. He is deeply involved in debt. It is charged that he has used his military authority for private gain. He was tried by a court-martial but escaped with only a reprimand from the Commander-in-Chief. He is thick with the Tories. He is the type of man who would sell his master for thirty pieces of silver."

"This is alarming," said Jack.

"My boy an ill wind is blowing on us," the Governor went on. "We have all too many Arnolds in our midst. Our currency has depreciated until forty shillings will not buy what one would have bought before the war. The profit makers are rolling in luxury and the poor army starves. The honest and patriotic are impoverished while those who practise fraud and Toryism are getting rich."

Depressed by this report of conditions in America Jack set out for Washington's headquarters on the Hudson. Never had the posture of American affairs looked so hopeless. The Governor had sold him a young mare with a white star in her forehead and a short, white stocking on her left fore-leg, known in good time as the horse of destiny.

"She was a well turned, high spirited creature with good plumes, a noble eye and a beautiful head and neck," Jack wrote long after the day he parted with her. "I have never ridden a more distinguished animal. She was in every way worthy of the task ahead of her."

When he had crossed the King's Ferry the mare went lame. A little beyond the crossing he met a man on a big, roan gelding. Jack stopped him to get information about the roads in the north.

"That's a good-looking mare," the man remarked.

"And she is better than she looks," Jack answered. "But she has thrown a shoe and gone lame."

"I'll trade even and give you a sound horse," the man proposed.

"What is your name and where do you live?" Jack inquired.

"My name is Paulding and I live at Tarrytown in the neutral territory."

"I hope that you like horses."

"You can judge of that by the look of this one. You will observe that he is well fed and groomed."

"And your own look is that of a good master," said Jack, as he examined the teeth and legs of the gelding. "Pardon me for asking. I have grown fond of the mare. She must have a good master."

"I accepted his offer not knowing that a third party was looking on and laying a deeper plan than either of us were able to penetrate," Jack used to say of that deal.

He approached the little house in which the Commander-in-Chief was quartered with a feeling of dread, fearing the effect of late developments on his spirit.

The young man wrote to Margaret in care of Franklin this account of the day which followed his return to camp:

"Thank God! I saw on the face of our Commander the same old look of unshaken confidence. I knew that he could see his way and what a sense of comfort came of that knowledge! More than we can tell we are indebted to the calm and masterful face of Washington. It holds up the heart of the army in all discouragements. His faith is established. He is not afraid of evil tidings. This great, god-like personality of his has put me on my feet again. I was in need of it, for a different kind of man, of the name of Arnold, had nearly floored me."

"'Sit down here and tell me all about Franklin,' he said with a smile.

"I told him what was going on in Paris and especially of the work of our great minister to the court of Louis XVI.

"He heard me with deep interest and when I had finished arose and gave me his hand saying:

"'Colonel, again you have won my gratitude. We must keep our courage.'

"I told him of my unhappy meeting with Arnold.

"'The man has his faults—he is very human, but he has been a good soldier,' Washington answered.

"The thought came to me that the love of liberty had lifted many of us above the human plane of sordid striving.

"Solomon came into camp that evening. He was so glad to see me that he could only wring my hand and utter exclamations.

"'How is the gal?' he asked presently.

"I told him of our meeting in Passy and of my fear that we should not meet again.

"'It seems as if the Lord were not yet willing to let us marry,' I said.

"'Course not,' he answered. 'When yer boat is in the rapids it's no time fer to go ashore an' pick apples. I cocalate the Lord is usin' ye fer to show the Ol' World what's inside o' us Americans.'

"Margaret, I wonder if the Lord really wished to show you and others the passion which is in the heart of Washington and his army. On the way to my ship I was like one making bloody footprints in the snow. How many of them I have seen! And now is the time to tell you that Doctor Franklin has written a letter informing me how deeply our part in the little pageant had impressed Mr. Hartley and the court people of France and that he had secured another loan.

"Solomon is a man of faith. He never falters.

"He said to me: 'Don't worry. That gal has got a backbone. She ain't no rye straw. She's a-goin' to think it over.'

"Neither spoke for a time. We sat by an open fire in front of his tent as the night fell. Solomon was filling his pipe. He swallowed and his right eye began to take aim. I knew that some highly important theme would presently open the door of his intellect and come out.

"'Jack, I been over to Albany,' he said. 'Had a long visit with Mirandy. They ain't no likelier womern in Ameriky. I'll bet a pint o' powder an' a fish hook on that. Ye kin look fer 'em till yer eyes run but ye'll be obleeged to give up.'

"He lighted his pipe and smoked a few whiffs and added: 'Knit seventy pair o' socks fer my regiment this fall.'

"'Have you asked her to marry you?' I inquired.

"'No. 'Tain't likely she'd have me,' he answered. 'She's had troubles enough. I wouldn't ask no womern to marry me till the war is fit out. I'm liable to git all shot up any day. I did think I'd ask her but I didn't. Got kind o' skeered an' skittish when we sot down together, an' come to think it all over, 'twouldn't 'a' been right.'

"'You're wrong, Solomon,' I answered. 'You ought to have a home of your own and a wife to make you fond of it. How is the Little Cricket?'

"'Cunnin'est little shaver that ever lived,' said he. 'I got him a teeny waggin an' drawed him down to the big medder an' back. He had a string hitched on to my waist an' he pulled an' hauled an' hollered whoa an' git ap till he were erbout as hoarse as a bull frog. When we got back he wanted to go all over me with a curry comb an' braid my mane.'

"The old scout roared with laughter as he thought of the child's play in which he had had a part. He told me of my own people and next to their good health it pleased me to learn that my father had given all his horses—save two—to Washington. That is what all our good men are doing. So you will see how it is that we are able to go on with this war against the great British empire.

"That night the idea came to me that I would seek an opportunity to return to France in the hope of finding you in Paris. I applied for a short furlough to give me a chance to go home and see the family. There I found a singular and disheartening situation. My father's modest fortune is now a part of the ruin of war. Soon after the beginning of hostilities he had loaned his money to men who had gone into the business of furnishing supplies to the army. He had loaned them dollars worth a hundred cents. They are paying their debts to him in dollars worth less than five cents. Many, and Washington among them, have suffered in a like manner. My father has little left but his land, two horses, a yoke of oxen and a pair of slaves. So I am too poor to give you a home in any degree worthy of you.

"Dear old Solomon has proposed to make me his heir, but now that he has met the likely womern I must not depend upon him. So I have tried to make you know the truth about me as well as I do. If your heart is equal to the discouragement I have heaped upon it I offer you this poor comfort. When the war is over I can borrow a thousand pounds to keep a roof over our heads and a fowl in the pot and pudding in the twifflers while I am clearing the way to success. The prospect is not inviting, I fear, but if, happily, it should appeal to you, I suggest that you join your father in New York at the first opportunity so that we may begin our life together as soon as the war ends. And now, whatever comes, I would wish you to keep these thoughts of me: I have loved you, but there are things which I have valued above my own happiness. If I can not have you I shall have always the memory of the hours we have spent together and of the great hope that was mine.

"While I was at home the people of our neighborhood set out at daylight one morning for a pigeon party. We had our breakfast on an island. Then the ladies sat down to knit and sew, while the men went fishing. In the afternoon we gathered berries and returned at dusk with filled pails and many fish. So our people go to the great storehouse of Nature and help themselves."



CHAPTER XXVII

WHICH CONTAINS THE ADVENTURES OF SOLOMON IN THE TIMBER SACK AND ON THE "HAND-MADE RIVER"

In the spring of 1779, there were scarcely sixteen thousand men in the American army, of which three thousand were under Gates at Providence; five thousand in the Highlands under McDougall, who was building new defenses at West Point, and on the east shore of the Hudson under Putnam; seven thousand were with Washington at Middlebrook where he had spent a quiet winter; a few were in the south. The British, discouraged in their efforts to conquer the northern and middle colonies, sent a force of seven thousand men to take Georgia and South Carolina. They hoped that Washington, who could not be induced to risk his army in decisive action against superior numbers, would thus be compelled to scatter and weaken it. But the Commander-in-Chief, knowing how seriously Nature, his great ally, was gnawing at the vitals of the British, bided his time and kept his tried regiments around him. Now and then, a staggering blow filled his enemies with a wholesome fear of him. His sallies were as swift and unexpected as the rush of a panther with the way of retreat always open. Meanwhile a cry of affliction and alarm had arisen in England. Its manufacturers were on the verge of bankruptcy, its people out of patience.

As soon as the ice was out of the lakes and rivers, Jack and Solomon joined an expedition under Sullivan against the Six Nations, who had been wreaking bloody vengeance on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and New York. The Senecas had been the worst offenders, having spilled the blood of every white family in their reach. Sullivan's expedition ascended the Chemung branch of the Susquehanna and routed a great force of Indians under Brant and Johnson at Newtown and crossed to the Valley of the Genessee, destroying orchards, crops and villages. The red men were slain and scattered. The fertile valley was turned into a flaming, smoking hell. Simultaneously a force went up the Alleghany and swept its shores with the besom of destruction.

Remembrance of the bold and growing iniquities of the savage was like a fire in the heart of the white man. His blood boiled with anger. He was without mercy. Like every reaping of the whirlwind this one had been far more plentiful than the seed from which it sprang. Those April days the power of the Indian was forever broken and his cup filled with bitterness. Solomon had spoken the truth when he left the Council Fire in the land of Kiodote:

"Hereafter the Injun will be a brother to the snake."

Jack and Solomon put their lives in danger by entering the last village ahead of the army and warning its people to flee. The killing had made them heart-sick, although they had ample reason for hating the red men.

In the absence of these able helpers Washington had moved to the Highlands. This led the British General, Sir Henry Clinton, to decide to block his return. So he sent a large force up the river and captured the fort at Stony Point and King's Ferry connecting the great road from the east with the middle states. The fort and ferry had to be retaken, and, early in July, Jack and Solomon were sent to look the ground over.

In the second day of their reconnoitering above Stony Point they came suddenly upon a British outpost. They were discovered and pursued but succeeded in eluding the enemy. Soon a large party began beating the bush with hounds. Jack escaped by hiding behind a waterfall. Solomon had a most remarkable adventure in making his way northward. Hearing the dogs behind him he ran to the shore of a bay, where a big drive of logs had been boomed in, and ran over them a good distance and dropped out of sight. He lay between two big sections of a great pine with his nose above water for an hour or so. A band of British came down to the shore and tried to run the logs but, being unaccustomed to that kind of work, were soon rolled under and floundering to their necks.

"I hadn't na skeer o' their findin' me," Solomon said to Jack. "'Cause they was a hundred acres o' floatin' timber in that 'ere bay. I heard 'em slippin' an' sloshin' eround nigh shore a few minutes an' then they give up an' went back in the bush. They were a strip o' open water 'twixt the logs an' the shore an' I clumb on to the timber twenty rod er more from whar I waded in so's to fool the dogs."

"What did you do with your rifle an' powder?" Jack inquired.

"Wal, ye see, they wuz some leetle logs beyond me that made a kind o' a holler an' I jest put ol' Marier 'crost 'em an' wound the string o' my powder-horn on her bar'l. I lay thar a while an' purty soon I heard a feller comin' on the timber. He were clus up to me when he hit a log wrong an' it rolled him under. I dim' up an' grabbed my rifle an' thar were 'nother cuss out on the logs not more'n ten rod erway. He took a shot at me, but the bullet didn't come nigh 'nough so's I could hear it whisper he were bobbin' eround so. I lifted my gun an' says I:

"'Boy, you come here to me.'

"But he thought he'd ruther go somewhar else an' he did—poor, ignorant devil! I went to t' other feller that was rasslin' with a log tryin' to git it under him. He'd flop the log an' then it would flop him. He'd throwed his rifle 'crost the timber. I goes over an' picks it up an' says I:

"'Take it easy, my son. I'll help ye in a minute.'

"His answer wa'n't none too p'lite. He were a leetle runt of a sergeant. I jest laughed at him an' went to t' other feller an' took the papers out o' his pockets. I see then a number o' British boys was makin' fer me on the wobbly top o' the river. They'd see me goin' as easy as a hoss on a turnpike an' they was tryin' fer to git the knack o' it. In a minute they begun poppin' at me. But shootin' on logs is like tryin' to walk a line on a wet deck in a hurricane. Ye got to know how to offset the wobble. They didn't skeer me. I went an' hauled that runt out o' the water an' with him under my right arm an' the two rifles under the left un I started treadin' logs headin' fer the north shore. They quit shootin' but come on a'ter me pell-mell. They got to comin' too fast an' I heard 'em goin' down through the roof o' the bay behind me an' rasslin' with the logs. That put meat on my bones! I could 'a' gone back an' made a mess o' the hull party with the toe o' my boot but I ain't overly fond o' killin'. Never have been. I took my time an' slopped erlong toward shore with the runt under my arm cussin' like a wildcat. We got ashore an' I made the leetle sergeant empty his pockets an' give me all the papers he had. I took the strip o' rawhide from round my belt an' put a noose above his knees an' 'nother on my wrist an' sot down to wait fer dark which the sun were then below the tree-tops. I looked with my spy-glass 'crost the bay an' could see the heads bobbin' up an' down an' a dozen men comin' out with poles to help the log rasslers. Fer some time they had 'nough to do an' I wouldn't be supprised. If we had the hull British army on floatin' timber the logs would lick 'em in a few minutes."

Solomon came in with his prisoner and accurate information as to the force of British in the Highlands.

On the night of the fifteenth of July, a detachment of Washington's troops under Wayne, preceded by the two scouts, descended upon Stony Point and King's Ferry and routed the enemy, capturing five hundred and fifty men and killing sixty. Within a few days the British came up the river in great force and Washington, unwilling to risk a battle, quietly withdrew and let them have the fort and ferry and their labor for their pains. It was a bitter disappointment to Sir Henry Clinton. The whole British empire clamored for decisive action and their great Commander was unable to bring it about and meanwhile the French were preparing to send a heavy force against them.



2

Solomon, being the ablest bush scout in the American army, was needed for every great enterprise in the wilderness. So when a small force was sent up the Penobscot River to dislodge a regiment of British from Nova Scotia, in the late summer of 1779, he went with it. The fleet which conveyed the Americans was in command of a rugged old sea captain from Connecticut of the name of Saltonstall who had little knowledge of the arts of war. He neglected the precautions which a careful commander would have taken.

A force larger than his own should have guarded the mouth of the river. Of this Solomon gave him warning, but Captain Saltonstall did not share the apprehension of the great scout. In consequence they were pursued and overhauled far up the river by a British fleet. Saltonstall in a panic ran his boats ashore and blew them up with powder. Again a force of Americans was compelled to suffer the bitter penalty of ignorance. The soldiers and crews ran wild in the bush a hundred miles from any settlement. It was not possible to organize them. They fled in all directions. Solomon had taken with him a bark canoe. This he carried, heading eastward and followed by a large company, poorly provisioned. A number of the ships' boats which had been lowered—and moved, before the destruction began, were carried on the advice of Solomon. Fortunately this party was not pursued. Nearly every man in it had his gun and ammunition. The scout had picked up a goodly outfit of axes and shovels and put them in the boats. He organized his retreat with sentries, rear guard, signals and a plan of defense. The carriers were shifted every hour. After two days of hard travel through the deep woods they came to a lake more than two miles long and about half as wide. Their provisions were gone save a few biscuit and a sack of salt. There were sixty-four men in the party.

Solomon organized a drive. A great loop of weary men was flung around the end of the lake more than a mile from its shore. Then they began approaching the camp, barking like dogs as they advanced. In this manner three deer and a moose were driven to the water and slain. These relieved the pangs of hunger and insured the party, for some little time, against starvation. They were, however, a long way from help in an unknown wilderness with a prospect of deadly hardships. Solomon knew that the streams in this territory ran toward the sea and for that reason he had burdened the party with boats and tools.

The able scout explored a long stretch of the lake's outlet which flowed toward the south. It had a considerable channel but not enough water for boats or canoes even. That night he began cutting timber for a dam at the end of the lake above its outlet. Near sundown, next day, the dam was finished and the water began rising. A rain hurried the process. Two days later the big water plane had begun to spill into its outlet and flood the near meadow flats. The party got the boats in place some twenty rods below and ready to be launched. Solomon drove the plug out of his dam and the pent-up water began to pour through. The stream was soon flooded and the boats floating. Thus with a spirited water horse to carry them they began their journey to the sea. Men stood in the bow and stern of each boat with poles to push it along and keep it off the banks. Some ten miles below they swung into a large river and went on, more swiftly, with the aid of oars and paddles.

Thus Solomon became the hero of this ill-fated expedition. After that he was often referred to in the army as the River Maker, although the ingenious man was better known as the Lightning Hurler, that phrase having been coined in Jack's account of his adventures with Solomon in the great north bush. In the ranks he had been regarded with a kind of awe as a most redoubtable man of mysterious and uncanny gifts since he and Jack had arrived in the Highlands fresh from their adventure of "shifting the skeer"—as Solomon was wont to put it—whereupon, with no great delay, the rash Colonel Burley had his Binkussing. The scout was often urged to make a display of his terrible weapon but he held his tongue about it, nor would he play with the lightning or be induced to hurl it upon white men.

"That's only fer to save a man from bein' burnt alive an' et up," he used to say.

At the White Pine Mills near the sea they were taken aboard a lumber ship bound for Boston. Solomon returned with a great and growing influence among the common soldiers. He had spent a week in Newport and many of his comrades had reached the camp of Washington in advance of the scout's arrival.

When Solomon—a worn and ragged veteran—gained the foot of the Highlands, late in October, he learned to his joy that Stony Point and King's Ferry had been abandoned by the British. He found Jack at Stony Point and told him the story of his wasted months. Then Jack gave his friend the news of the war.

D'Estaing with a French fleet had arrived early in the month. This had led to the evacuation of Newport and Stony Point to strengthen the British position in New York. But South Carolina had been conquered by the British. It took seven hundred dollars to buy a pair of shoes with the money of that state, so that great difficulties had fallen in the way of arming and equipping a capable fighting force.

"I do not talk of it to others, but the troubles of our beloved Washington are appalling," Jack went on. "The devil loves to work with the righteous, waiting his time. He had his envoy even among the disciples of Jesus. He is among us in the person of Benedict Arnold—lover of gold. The new recruits are mostly of his stripe. He is their Captain. They demand big bounties. The faithful old guard, who have fought for the love of liberty and are still waiting for their pay, see their new comrades taking high rewards. It isn't fair. Naturally the old boys hate the newcomers. They feel like putting a coat of tar and feathers on every one of them. You and I have got to go to work and put the gold seekers out of the temple. They need to hear some of your plain talk. Our greatest peril is Arnoldism."

"You jest wait an' hear to me," said Solomon. "I got suthin' to say that'll make their ears bleed passin' through 'em."

The evening of his arrival in camp Solomon talked at the general assembly of the troops. He was introduced with most felicitous good humor by Washington's able secretary, Mr. Alexander Hamilton. The ingenious and rare accomplishments of the scout and his heroic loyalty were rubbed with the rhetoric of an able talker until they shone.

"Boys, ye kint make no hero out o' an old scrag o' a man like me," Solomon began. "You may b'lieve what Mr. Hamilton says but I know better. I been chased by Death an' grabbed by the coat-tails frequent, but I been lucky enough to pull away. That's all. You new recruits 'a' been told how great ye be. I'm a-goin' fer to tell ye the truth. I don't like the way ye look at this job. It ain't no job o' workin' out. We're all workin' fer ourselves. It's my fight an' it's yer fight. I won't let no king put a halter on my head an', with the stale in one hand an' a whip in t' other, lead me up to the tax collector to pay fer his fun. I'd ruther fight him. Some o' you has fam'lies. Don't worry 'bout 'em. They'll be took care of. I got some confidence in the Lord myself. Couldn't 'a' lived without it. Look a' me. I'm so ragged that I got patches o' sunburn on my back an' belly. I'm what ye might call a speckled man. My feet 'a' been bled. My body looks like an ol' tree that has been clawed by a bear an' bit by woodpeckers. I've stuck my poker into the fire o' hell. I've been singed an' frost bit an' half starved an' ripped by bullets, an' all the pay I want is liberty an' it ain't due yit. I've done so little I'm 'shamed o' myself. Money! Lord God o' Israel! If any man has come here fer to make money let him stan' up while we all pray fer his soul. These 'ere United States is your hum an' my hum an' erway down the trail afore us they's millions 'pon millions o' folks comin' an' we want 'em to be free. We're a-fightin' fer 'em an' fer ourselves. If ye don't fight ye'll git nothin' but taxes to pay the cost o' lickin' ye. It'll cost a hundred times more to be licked than it'll cost to win. Ye won't find any o' the ol' boys o' Washington squealin' erbout pay. We're lookin' fer brothers an' not pigs. Git down on yer knees with me, every one o' ye, while the Chaplain asks God A'mighty to take us all into His army."

The words of Solomon put the new men in better spirit and there was little complaining after that. They called that speech "The Binkussing of the Recruits." Solomon was the soul of the old guard.



CHAPTER XXVIII

IN WHICH ARNOLD AND HENRY THORNHILL ARRIVE IN THE HIGHLANDS

Margaret and her mother returned to England with David Hartley soon after Colonel Irons had left France. The British Commissioner had not been able to move the philosopher. Later, from London, he had sent a letter to Franklin seeking to induce America to desert her new ally. Franklin had answered:

"I would think the destruction of our whole country and the extirpation of our people preferable to the infamy of abandoning our allies. We may lose all but we shall act in good faith."

Here again was a new note in the history of diplomatic intercourse.

Colonel Irons' letter to Margaret Hare, with the greater part of which the reader is familiar, was forwarded by Franklin to his friend Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and by him delivered. Another letter, no less vital to the full completion of the task of these pages was found in the faded packet. It is from General Sir Benjamin Hare to his wife in London and is dated at New York, January 10, 1780. This is a part of the letter:

"I have a small house near the barracks with our friend Colonel Ware and the best of negro slaves and every comfort. It is now a loyal city, secure from attack, and, but for the soldiers, one might think it a provincial English town. This war may last for years and as the sea is, for a time, quite safe, I have resolved to ask you and Margaret to take passage on one of the first troop ships sailing for New York, after this reaches you. Our friend Sir Roger and his regiments will be sailing in March as I am apprised by a recent letter. I am, by this post, requesting him to offer you suitable accommodations and to give you all possible assistance. The war would be over now if Washington would only fight. His caution is maddening. His army is in a desperate plight, but he will not come out and meet us in the open. He continues to lean upon the strength of the hills. But there are indications that he will be abandoned by his own army."

Those "indications" were the letters of one John Anderson, who described himself as a prominent officer in the American army. The letters were written to Sir Henry Clinton. They asked for a command in the British army and hinted at the advantage to be derived from facts, of prime importance, in the writer's possession.

Margaret and her mother sailed with Sir Roger Waite and his regiments on the tenth of March and arrived in New York on the twenty-sixth of April. Rivington's Gazette of the twenty-eighth of that month describes an elaborate dinner given by Major John Andre, Adjutant-General of the British Army, at the City Hotel to General Sir Benjamin Hare and Lady Hare and their daughter Margaret. Indeed the conditions in New York differed from those in the camp of Washington as the day differs from the night.

A Committee of Congress had just finished a visit to Washington's Highland camp. They reported that the army had received no pay in five months; that it often went "sundry successive days without meat"; that it had scarcely six days' provisions ahead; that no forage was available; that the medical department had neither sugar, tea, chocolate, wine nor spirits.

The month of May, 1780, gave Washington about the worst pinch in his career. It was the pinch of hunger. Supplies had not arrived. Famine had entered the camp and begun to threaten its life. Soldiers can get along without pay but they must have food. Mutiny broke out among the recruits.

In the midst of this trouble, Lafayette, the handsome French Marquis, then twenty-three years old, arrived on his white horse, after a winter in Paris, bringing word that a fleet and army from France were heading across the sea. This news revived the drooping spirit of the army. Soon boats began to arrive from down the river with food from the east. The crisis passed. In the north a quiet summer followed. The French fleet with six thousand men under Rochambeau arrived at Newport, July tenth, and were immediately blockaded by the British as was a like expedition fitting out at Brest. So Washington could only hold to his plan of prudent waiting.



2

On a clear, warm day, late in July, 1780, a handsome coach drawn by four horses crossed King's Ferry and toiled up the Highland road. It carried Benedict Arnold and his wife and their baggage. Jack and Solomon passed and recognized them.

"What does that mean, I wonder?" Jack queried.

"Dun know," Solomon answered.

"I'm scared about it," said the younger scout. "I am afraid that this money seeker has the confidence of Washington. He has been a good fighting man. That goes a long way with the Chief."

Colonel Irons stopped his horse. "I am of half a mind to go back," he declared.

"Why?"

"I didn't tell the General half that Reed said to me. It was so bitter and yet I believe it was true. I ought to have told him. Perhaps I ought now to go and tell him."

"There's time 'nough," said Solomon. "Wait till we git back. Sometimes I've thought the Chief needed advice but it's allus turned out that I was the one that needed it."

The two horsemen rode on in silence. It was the middle of the afternoon of that memorable July day. They were bound for the neutral territory between the American and British lines, infested by "cow boys" from the south and "skinners" from the north who were raiding the farms of the settlers and driving away their cattle to be sold to the opposing armies. The two scouts were sent to learn the facts and report upon them. They parted at a cross-road. It was near sundown when at a beautiful brook, bordered with spearmint and wild iris, Jack watered and fed his horse and sat down to eat his luncheon. He was thinking of Arnold and the new danger when he discovered that a man stood near him. The young scout had failed to hear his approach—a circumstance in no way remarkable since the road was little traveled and covered with moss and creeping herbage. He thought not of this, however, but only of the face and form and manner of the stranger. The face was that of a man of middle age. The young man wrote in a letter:

"It was a singularly handsome face, smooth shaven and well shaped with large, dark eyes and a skin very clean and perfect—I had almost said it was transparent. Add to all this a look of friendliness and masterful dignity and you will understand why I rose to my feet and took off my hat. His stature was above my own, his form erect. I remember nothing about his clothes save that they were dark in color and seemed to be new and admirably fitted.

"'You are John Irons, Jr., and I am Henry Thornhill,' said he. 'I saw you at Kinderhook where I used to live. I liked you then and, since the war began, I have known of your adventures.'

"'I did not flatter myself that any one could know of them except my family, and my fellow scout and General Washington,' I answered.

"'Well, I happen to have had the chance to know of them,' he went on. 'You are a true friend of the great cause. I saw you passing a little way back and I followed for I have something to say to you.'

"'I shall be glad to hear of it,' was my answer.

"'Washington can not be overcome by his enemies unless he is betrayed by his friends. Arnold has been put in command at West Point. He has planned the betrayal of the army.'

"'Do you know that?' I asked.

"'As well as I know light and darkness.'

"'Have you told Washington?'

"'No. As yet I have had no opportunity. I am telling him, now, through you. In his friendships he is a singularly stubborn man. The wiles of an enemy are as an open book to him but those of a friend he is not able to comprehend. He will discredit or only half believe any warning that you or I may give him. But it is for you and Solomon to warn him and be not deceived.'

"'I shall turn about and ride back to camp,' I said.

"'There is no need of haste,' he answered. 'Arnold does not assume command until the third of August.'

"He shaded his eyes and looked toward the west where the sun was setting and the low lying clouds were like rose colored islands in a golden sea, and added as he hurried away down the road to the south:

"'It is a beautiful world.'

"'Too good for fighting men,' I answered as I sat down to finish my luncheon for I was still hungry.

"While I ate, the tormenting thought came to me that I had neglected to ask for the source of his information or for his address. It was a curious oversight due to his masterly manner and that sense of the guarded tongue which an ordinary mortal is apt to feel in the presence of a great personality. I had been, in a way, self-bridled and cautious in my speech, as I have been wont to be in the presence of Washington himself. I looked down the road ahead. The stranger had rounded a bend and was now hidden by the bush. I hurried through my repast, bridled my horse and set off at a gallop expecting to overtake him, but to my astonishment he had left the road. I did not see him again, but his words were ever with me in the weeks that followed.

"I reached the Corlies farm, far down in the neutral territory, at ten o'clock and a little before dawn was with Corlies and his neighbors in a rough fight with a band of cattle thieves, in the course of which three men and a boy were seriously disabled by my pistols. We had salted a herd and concealed ourselves in the midst of it and so were able to shoot from good cover when the thieves arrived. Solomon and I spent four days in the neutral territory. When we left it a dozen cattle thieves were in need of repair and three had moved to parts unknown. Save in the southern limit, their courage had been broken.

"I had often thought of Nancy, the blaze-faced mare, that I had got from Governor Reed and traded to Mr. Paulding. I was again reminded of her by meeting a man who had just come from Tarrytown. Being near that place I rode on to Paulding's farm and spent a night in his house. I found Nancy in good flesh and spirits. She seemed to know and like the touch of my hand and, standing by her side, the notion came to me that I ought to own her. Paulding was reduced in circumstances. Having been a patriot and a money-lender, the war had impoverished him. My own horse was worn by overwork and so I proposed a trade and offered a sum to boot which he promptly accepted. I came back up the north road with the handsome, high-headed mare under my saddle. The next night I stopped with one Reuben Smith near the northern limit of the neutral territory below Stony Point. Smith had prospered by selling supplies to the patriot army. I had heard that he was a Tory and so I wished to know him. I found him a rugged, jovial, long-haired man of middle age, with a ready ringing laugh. His jokes were spoken in a low tone and followed by quick, stertorous breathing and roars and gestures of appreciation. His cheerful spirit had no doubt been a help to him in our camp.

"'I've got the habit o' laughin' at my own jokes,' said he. 'Ye see it's a lonely country here an' if I didn't give 'em a little encouragement they wouldn't come eround,' the man explained.

"He lifted a foot and swung it in the air while he bent the knee of the leg on which he was standing and opened his mouth widely and blew the air out of his lungs and clapped his hands together.

"'It also gives you exercise,' I remarked.

"'A joke is like a hoss; it has to be fed or it won't work,' he remarked, as he continued his cheerful gymnastics. I have never known a man to whom a joke was so much of an undertaking. He sobered down and added:

"'This mare is no stranger to oats an' the curry comb."

"He looked her over carefully before he led her to the stable.

"Next morning as he stood by her noble head, Smith said to me:

"'She's a knowin' beast. She'd be smart enough to laugh at my jokes an' I wouldn't wonder.'

"He was immensely pleased with this idea of his. Then, turning serious, he asked if I would sell her.

"'You couldn't afford to own that mare,' I said.

"I had touched his vanity. In fact I did not realize how much he had made by his overcharging. He was better able to own her than I and that he proposed to show me.

"He offered for her another horse and a sum which caused me to take account of my situation. The money would be a help to me. However, I shook my head. He increased his offer.

"'What do you want of her?" I asked.

"'I've always wanted to own a hoss like that,' he answered.

"'I intended to keep the mare,' said I. 'But if you will treat her well and give her a good home I shall let you have her.'

"'A man who likes a good joke will never drive a spavined hoss,' he answered merrily.

"So it happened that the mare Nancy fell into the hands of Reuben Smith."



CHAPTER XXIX

LOVE AND TREASON

When Jack and Solomon returned to headquarters, Arnold and his wife were settled in a comfortable house overlooking the river. Colonel Irons made his report. The Commander-in-Chief complimented him and invited the young man to make a tour of the camp in his company. They mounted their horses and rode away together.

"I learn that General Arnold is to be in command here," Jack remarked soon after the ride began.

"I have not yet announced my intention," said Washington. "Who told you?"

"A man of the name of Henry Thornhill."

"I do not know him but he is curiously well informed. Arnold is an able officer. We have not many like him. He is needed here for I have to go on a long trip to eastern Connecticut to confer with Rochambeau. In the event of some unforeseen crisis Arnold would know what to do."

Then Jack spoke out: "General, I ought to have reported to you the exact words of Governor Reed. They were severe, perhaps, even, unjust. I have not repeated them to any one. But now I think you should know their full content and Judge of them in your own way. The Governor insists that Arnold is bad at heart—that he would sell his master for thirty pieces of silver."

Washington made no reply, for a moment, and then his words seemed to have no necessary relation to those of Jack Irons.

"General Arnold has been badly cut up in many battles," said he. "I wish him to be relieved of all trying details. You are an able and prudent man. I shall make you his chief aide with the rank of Brigadier-General. He needs rest and will concern himself little with the daily routine. In my absence, you will be the superintendent of the camp, and subject to orders I shall leave with you. Colonel Binkus will be your helper. I hope that you may be able to keep yourself on friendly terms with the General."

Jack reported to the Commander-in-Chief the warning of Thornhill, but the former made light of it.

"The air is full of evil gossip," he said. "You may hear it of me."

When they rode up to headquarters Arnold was there. To Jack's surprise the Major-General greeted him with friendly words, saying:

"I hope to know you better for I have heard much of your courage and fighting quality."

"There are good soldiers here," said Jack. "If I am one of them it is partly because I have seen you fight. You have given all of us the inspiration of a great example."

It was a sincere and deserved tribute.

On the third of August—the precise date named by Henry Thornhill—Arnold took command of the camp and Irons assumed his new duties. The Major-General rode with Washington every day until, on the fourteenth of September, the latter set out with three aides and Colonel Binkus on his trip to Connecticut. Solomon rode with the party for two days and then returned. Thereafter Arnold left the work of his office to Jack and gave his time to the enjoyment of the company of his wife and a leisure that suffered little interruption. For him, grim visaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front. Like Richard he had hung up his bruised arms. The day of Washington's departure, Mrs. Arnold invited Jack to dinner. The young man felt bound to accept this opportunity for more friendly relations.

Mrs. Arnold was a handsome, vivacious, blonde young woman of thirty. The officer speaks in a letter of her lively talk and winning smiles and splendid figure, well fitted with a costume that reminded him of the court ladies in France.

"What a contrast to the worn, patched uniforms to be seen in that camp!" he added.

Soon after the dinner began, Mrs. Arnold said to the young man, "We have heard of your romance. Colonel and Mrs. Hare and their young daughter spent a week in our home in Philadelphia on their first trip to the colonies. Later Mrs. Hare wrote to my mother of their terrible adventure in the great north bush and spoke of Margaret's attachment for the handsome boy who had helped to rescue them, so I have some right to my interest in you."

"And therefor I thank you and congratulate myself," said the young man. "It is a little world after all."

"And your story has been big enough to fill it," she went on. "The ladies in Philadelphia seem to know all its details. We knew only how it began. They have told us of the thrilling duel and how the young lovers were separated by the war and how you were sent out of England."

"You astonish me," said the officer. "I did not imagine that my humble affairs would interest any one but myself and my family. I suppose that Doctor Franklin must have been talking about them. The dear old soul is the only outsider who knows the facts."

"And if he had kept them to himself he would have been the most inhuman wretch in the world," said Mrs. Arnold. "Women have their rights. They need something better to talk about than Acts of Parliament and taxes and war campaigns. I thank God that no man can keep such a story to himself. He has to have some one to help him enjoy it. A good love-story is like murder. It will out."

"It has caused me a lot of misery and a lot of happiness," said the young man.

"I long to see the end of it," the woman went on. "I happen to know a detail in your story which may be new to you. Miss Hare is now in New York."

"In New York!"

"Oddso! In New York! We heard in Philadelphia that she and her mother had sailed with Sir Roger Waite in March. How jolly it would be if the General and I could bring you together and have a wedding at headquarters!"

"I could think of no greater happiness save that of seeing the end of the war," Jack answered.

"The war! That is a little matter. I want to see a proper end to this love-story."

She laughed and ran to the spinnet and sang Shepherds, I Have Lost My Love.

The General would seem to have been in bad spirits. He had spoken not half a dozen words. To him the talk of the others had been as spilled water. Jack has described him as a man of "unstable temperament."

The young man's visit was interrupted by Solomon who came to tell him that he was needed in the matter of a quarrel between some of the new recruits.

Jack and Solomon exercised unusual care in guarding the camp and organizing for defense in case of attack. It was soon after Washington's departure that Arnold went away on the road to the south. Solomon followed keeping out of his field of vision. The General returned two days later. Solomon came into Jack's hut about midnight of the day of Arnold's return with important news.

Jack was at his desk studying a map of the Highlands. The camp was at rest. The candle in Jack's hut was the only sign of life around headquarters when Solomon, having put out his horse, came to talk with his young friend. He stepped close to the desk, swallowed nervously and began his whispered report.

"Suthin' neevarious be goin' on," he began. "A British ship were lyin' nigh the mouth o' the Croton River. Arnold went aboard. An' officer got into his boat with him an' they pulled over to the west shore and went into the bush. Stayed thar till mos' night. If 'twere honest business, why did they go off in the bush alone fer a talk?"

Jack shook his head.

"Soon as I seen that I went to one o' our batteries an' tol' the Cap'n what were on my mind.

"'Damn the ol' British tub. We'll make 'er back up a little,' sez he. 'She's too clus anyhow.'

"Then he let go a shot that ripped the water front o' her bow. Say, Jack, they were some hoppin' eround on the deck o' the big British war sloop. They h'isted her sails an' she fell away down the river a mile 'er so. The sun were set when Arnold an' the officer come out o' the bush. I were in a boat with a fish rod an' could jes' see 'em with my spy-glass, the light were so dim. They stood thar lookin' fer the ship. They couldn't see her. They went back into the bush. It come to me what they was goin' to do. Arnold were a-goin' to take the Britisher over to the house o' that ol' Tory, Reub Smith. I got thar fust an' hid in the bushes front o' the house. Sure 'nough!—that's what were done. Arnold an' t' other feller come erlong an' went into the house. 'Twere so dark I couldn't see 'em but I knowed 'twere them."

"How?" the young man asked.

"'Cause they didn't light no candle. They sot in the dark an' they didn't talk out loud like honest men would. I come erway. I couldn't do no more."

"I think you've done well," said Jack. "Now go and get some rest. To-morrow may be a hard day."



2

Jack spent a bad night in the effort to be as great as his problem. In the morning he sent Solomon and three other able scouts to look the ground over east, west and south of the army. One of them was to take the road to Hartford and deliver a message to Washington.

After the noon mess, Arnold mounted his horse and rode away alone. The young Brigadier sent for his trusted friend, Captain Merriwether.

"Captain, the General has set out on the east road alone," said Jack. "He is not well. There's something wrong with his heart. I am a little worried about him. He ought not to be traveling alone. My horse is in front of the door. Jump on his back and keep in sight of the General, but don't let him know what you are doing."

A little later Mrs. Arnold entered the office of the new Brigadier in a most cheerful mood.

"I have good news for you," she announced.

"What is it?"

"Soon I hope to make a happy ending of your love-story."

"God prosper you," said the young man.

She went on with great animation: "A British officer has come in a ship under a flag of truce to confer with General Arnold. I sent a letter to Margaret Hare on my own responsibility with the General's official communication. I invited her to come with the party and promised her safe conduct to our house. I expect her. For the rest we look to you."

The young man wrote: "This announcement almost took my breath. My joy was extinguished by apprehension before it could show itself. I did not speak, being for a moment confused and blinded by lightning flashes of emotion."

"It is your chance to bring the story to a pretty end," she went on. "Let us have a wedding at headquarters. On the night of the twenty-eighth, General Washington will have returned. He has agreed to dine with us that evening."

"I think that she must have observed the shadow on my face for, while she spoke, a great fear had come upon me," he testified in the Court of Inquiry. "It seemed clear to me that, if there was a plot, the capture of Washington himself was to be a part of it and my sweetheart a helpful accessory."

"'Are you not pleased?' Mrs. Arnold asked.

"I shook off my fear and answered: 'Forgive me. It is all so unexpected and so astonishing and so very good of you! It has put my head in a whirl.'

"Gentlemen, I could see no sinister motive in this romantic enterprise of Mrs. Arnold," the testimony proceeds. "I have understood that her sympathies were British but, if so, she had been discreet enough in camp to keep them to herself. Whatever they may have been, I felt as sure then, as I do now, that she was a good woman. Her kindly interest in my little romance was just a bit of honest, human nature. It pleased me and when I think of her look of innocent, unguarded, womanly frankness, I can not believe that she had had the least part in the dark intrigue of her husband.

"I arose and kissed her hand and I remember well the words I spoke: 'Madame,' I said, 'let me not try now to express my thanks. I shall need time for friendly action and well chosen words. Do you think that Margaret will fall in with your plans?'

"She answered:

"'How can she help it? She is a woman. Have you not both been waiting these many years for the chance to marry? I think that I know a woman's heart.'

"'You know much that I am eager to know,' I said. 'The General has not told me that he is to meet the British. May I know all the good news?'

"'Of course he will tell you about that,' she assured me. 'He has told me only a little. It is some negotiation regarding an exchange of prisoners. I am much more interested in Margaret and the wedding. I wish you would tell me about her. I have heard that she has become very beautiful.'

"I showed Mrs. Arnold the miniature portrait which Margaret had given me the day of our little ride and talk in London and then an orderly came with a message and that gave me an excuse to put an end to this untimely babbling for which I had no heart. The message was from Solomon. He had got word that the British war-ship had come back up the river and was two miles above Stony Point with a white flag at her masthead.

"My nerves were as taut as a fiddle string. A cloud of mystery enveloped the camp and I was unable to see my way. Was the whole great issue for which so many of us had perished and fought and endured all manner of hardships, being bartered away in the absence of our beloved Commander? I have suffered much but never was my spirit so dragged and torn as when I had my trial in the thorny way of distrust. I have had my days of conceit when I felt equal to the work of Washington, but there was no conceit in me then. Face to face with the looming peril, of which warning had come to me, I felt my own weakness and the need of his masterful strength.

"I went out-of-doors. Soon I met Merriwether coming into camp. Arnold had returned. He had ridden at a walk toward the headquarters of the Second Brigade and turned about and come back without speaking to any one. Arnold was looking down as if absorbed in his own thoughts when Merriwether passed him in the road. He did not return the latter's salute. It was evident that the General had ridden away for the sole purpose of being alone.

"I went back to my hut and sat down to try to find my way when suddenly the General appeared at my door on his bay mare and asked me to take a little ride with him. I mounted my horse and we rode out on the east road together for half a mile or so.

"'I believe that my wife had some talk with you this morning,' he began.

"'Yes,' I answered.

"'A British officer has come up the river in a ship under a white flag with a proposal regarding an exchange of prisoners. In my answer to their request for a conference, some time ago, I enclosed a letter from Mrs. Arnold to Miss Margaret Hare inviting her to come to our home where she would find a hearty welcome and her lover—now an able and most valued officer of the staff. A note received yesterday says that Miss Hare is one of the party. We are glad to be able to do you this little favor.'

"I thanked him.

"'I wish that you could go with me down the river to meet her in the morning,' he said. 'But in my absence it will, of course, be necessary for you to be on duty. Mrs. Arnold will go with me and we shall, I hope, bring the young lady safely to head-quarters.'

"He was preoccupied. His face wore a serious look. There was a melancholy note in his tone—I had observed that in other talks with him—but it was a friendly tone. It tended to put my fears at rest.

"I asked the General what he thought of the prospects of our cause.

"'They are not promising,' he answered. 'The defeat of Gates in the south and the scattering of his army in utter rout is not an encouraging event.'

"'I think that we shall get along better now that the Gates bubble has burst,' I answered."

This ends the testimony of "the able and most valued officer," Jack Irons, Jr.



CHAPTER XXX

"WHO IS SHE THAT LOOKETH FORTH AS THE MORNING, FAIR AS THE MOON, CLEAR AS THE SUN, AND TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY WITH BANNERS?"

The American army had been sold by Arnold. The noble ideal it had cherished, the blood it had given, the bitter hardships it had suffered—torture in the wilderness, famine in the Highlands, long marches of half naked men in mid-winter, massacres at Wyoming and Cherry Valley—all this had been bartered away, like a shipload of turnips, to satisfy the greed of one man. Again thirty pieces of silver! Was a nation to walk the bitter way to its Calvary? Major Andre, the Adjutant-General of Sir Henry Clinton's large force in New York, was with the traitor when he rowed from the ship to the west shore of the Hudson and went into the bush under the observation of Solomon with his spy-glass. Arnold was to receive a command and large pay in the British army. The consideration had been the delivery of maps showing the positions of Washington's men and the plans of his forts and other defenses, especially those of Forts Putnam and Clinton and Battery Knox. Much other information was put in the hands of the British officer, including the prospective movements of the Commander-in-Chief. He was to be taken in the house of the man he had befriended. Andre had only to reach New York with his treasure and Arnold to hold the confidence of his chief for a few days and, before the leaves had fallen, the war would end. The American army and its master mind would be at the mercy of Sir Henry Clinton.

Those September days the greatest love-story this world had known was feeling its way in a cloud of mystery. The thrilling tale of Man and Liberty, which had filled the dreams of sage and poet, had been nearing its golden hours. Of a surety, at last, it would seem the lovers were to be wed. What time, in the flying ages, they had greeted each other with hearts full of the hope of peace and happiness, some tyrant king and his armies had come between them. Then what a carnival of lust, rapine and bloody murder! Man was broken on the wheel of power and thwarted Hope sat brooding in his little house. History had been a long siege, like that of Troy, to deliver a fairer Helen from the established power of Kings. Now, beyond three thousand miles of sea, supported by the strength of the hills and hearts informed and sworn to bitter duty, Man, at last, had found his chance. Again Liberty, in robes white as snow and sweet as the morning, beckoned to her lover. Another king was come with his armies to keep them apart. The armies being baffled, Satan had come also and spread his hidden snares. Could Satan prevail? Was the story nearing another failure—a tragedy dismal and complete as that of Thermopylae?

This day we shall know. This day holds the moment which is to round out the fulness of time. It is the twenty-third of September, 1780, and the sky is clear. Now as the clock ticks its hours away, we may watch the phrases of the capable Author of the great story as they come from His pen. His most useful characters are remote and unavailable. It would seem that the villain was likely to have his way. The Author must defeat him, if possible, with some stroke of ingenuity. For this He was not unprepared.

Before the day begins it will be well to review, briefly, the hours that preceded it.

Andre would have reached New York that night if The Vulture had not changed her position on account of a shot from the battery below Stony Point. For that, credit must be given to the good scout Solomon Binkus. The ship was not in sight when the two men came out in their boat from the west shore of the river while the night was falling. Arnold had heard the shot and now that the ship had left her anchorage a fear must have come to him that his treachery was suspected.

"I may want to get away in that boat myself," he suggested to Andre.

"She will not return until she gets orders from you or me," the Britisher assured him.

"I wonder what has become of her," said Arnold.

"She has probably dropped down the river for some reason," Andre answered. "What am I to do?"

"I'll take you to the house of a man I know who lives near the river and send you to New York by horse with passports in the morning. You can reach the British lines to-morrow."

"I would like that," Andre exclaimed. "It would afford me a welcome survey of the terrain."

"Smith will give you a suit of clothes that will fit you well enough," said the traitor. "You and he are about of a size. It will be better for you to be in citizen's dress."

So it happened that in the darkness of the September evening Smith and Andre, the latter riding the blazed-face mare, set out for King's Ferry, where they were taken across the river. They rode a few miles south of the landing to the shore of Crom Pond and spent the night with a friend of Smith. In the morning the latter went on with Andre until they had passed Pine's Bridge on the Croton River. Then he turned back.

Now Andre fared along down the road alone on the back of the mare Nancy. He came to an outpost of the Highland army and presented his pass. It was examined and endorsed and he went on his way. He met transport wagons, a squad of cavalry and, later, a regiment of militia coming up from western Connecticut, but no one stopped him. In the faded hat and coat and trousers of Reuben Smith, this man, who called himself John Anderson, was not much unlike the farmer folk who were riding hither and thither in the neutral territory, on their petit errands. His face was different. It was the well kept face of an English aristocrat with handsome dark eyes and hair beginning to turn gray. Still, shadowed by the brim of the old hat, his face was not likely to attract much attention from the casual observer. The handsome mare he rode was a help in this matter. She took and held the eyes of those who passed him. He went on unchallenged. A little past the hour of the high sun he stopped to drink at a wayside spring and to give his horse some oats out of one of the saddle-bags. It was then that a patriot soldier came along riding northward. He was one of Solomon's scouts. The latter stopped to let his horse drink. As his keen eyes surveyed the south-bound traveler, John Anderson felt his danger. At that moment the scout was within reach of immortal fame had he only known it. He was not so well informed as Solomon. He asked a few questions and called for the pass of the stranger. That was unquestionable. The scout resumed his journey.

Andre resolved not to stop again. He put the bit in the mare's mouth, mounted her and rode on with his treasure. The most difficult part of his journey was behind him. Within twelve hours he should be at Clinton's headquarters.

Suddenly he came to a fork in the road and held up his horse, uncertain which way to go. Now the great moment was come. Shall he turn to the right or the left? On his decision rests the fate of the New World and one of the most vital issues in all history, it would seem. The left-hand road would have taken him safely to New York, it is fair to assume. He hesitates. The day is waning. It is a lonely piece of road. There is no one to tell him. The mare shows a preference for the turn to the right. Why? Because it leads to Tarrytown, her former home, and a good master. Andre lets her have her way. She hurries on, for she knows where there is food and drink and gentle hands. So a leg of the mighty hazard has been safely won by the mare Nancy. The officer rode on, and what now was in his way? A wonder and a mystery greater even than that of Nancy and the fork in the road. A little out of Tarrytown on the highway the horseman traveled, a group of three men were hidden in the bush—ragged, profane, abominable cattle thieves waiting for cows to come down out of the wild land to be milked. They were "skinners" in the patriot militia, some have said; some that they were farmers' sons not in the army. However that may have been, they were undoubtedly rough, hard-fisted fellows full of the lawless spirit bred by five years of desperate warfare. They were looking for Tories as well as for cattle. Tories were their richest prey, for the latter would give high rewards to be excused from the oath of allegiance.

They came out upon Andre and challenged him. The latter knew that he had passed the American outposts and thought that he was near the British lines. He was not familiar with the geography of the upper east shore. He knew that the so-called neutral territory was overrun by two parties—the British being called the "Lower" and the Yankees the "Upper."

"What party do you belong to?" Andre demanded.

"The Lower," said one of the Yankees.

It was, no doubt, a deliberate lie calculated to inspire frankness in a possible Tory. That was the moment for Andre to have produced his passports, which would have opened the road for him. Instead he committed a fatal error, the like of which it would be hard to find in all the records of human action.

"I am a British officer," he declared. "Please take me to your post."

They were keen-minded men who quickly surrounded him. A British officer! Why was he in the dress of a Yankee farmer? The pass could not save him now from these rough, strong handed fellows. The die was cast. They demanded the right of search. He saw his error and changed his plea.

"I am only a citizen of New York returning from family business in the country," he said.

He drew his gold watch from his pocket—that unfailing sign of the gentleman of fortune—and looked at its dial.

"You can see I am no common fellow," he added. "Let me go on about my business."

They firmly insisted on their right to search him. He began to be frightened. He offered them his watch and a purse full of gold and any amount of British goods to be allowed to go on his way.

Now here is the wonder and the mystery in this remarkable proceeding. These men were seeking plunder and here was a handsome prospect. Why did they not make the most of it and be content? The "skinners" were plunderers, but first of all and above all they were patriots. The spirit brooding over the Highlands of the Hudson and the hills of New England had entered their hearts. The man who called himself John Anderson was compelled to dismount and empty his pockets and take off his boots, in one of which was the damning evidence of Arnold's perfidy. A fortune was then within the reach of these three hard-working men of the hills, but straightway they took their prisoner and the papers, found in his boot, to the outpost commanded by Colonel Jameson.

This negotiation for the sale of the United States had met with unexpected difficulties. The "skinners" had been as hard to buy as the learned diplomat.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE LOVERS AND SOLOMON'S LAST FIGHT

Meanwhile, Margaret and her mother had come up the river in a barge with General and Mrs. Arnold to the house of the latter. Jack had gone out on a tour of inspection. He had left headquarters after the noon meal with a curious message in his pocket and a feeling of great relief. The message had been delivered to him by the mother of a captain in one of the regiments. She said that it had been given to her by a man whom she did not know. Jack had been busy when it came and did not open it until she had gone away. It was an astonishing and most welcome message in the flowing script of a rapid penman, but clearly legible. It was without date and very brief. These were the cheering words in it:

"MY DEAR FRIEND: I have good news from down the river. The danger is passed.

"HENRY THORNHILL."

"Well, Henry Thornhill is a man who knows whereof he speaks," the young officer said to himself, as he rode away. "I should like to meet him again."

That day the phrase "Good news from down the river" came repeatedly back to him. He wondered what it meant.

Jack being out of camp, Margaret had found Solomon. Toward the day's end he had gone out on the south road with the young lady and her mother and Mrs. Arnold.

Jack was riding into camp from an outpost of the army. The day was in its twilight. He had been riding fast. He pulled up his horse as he approached a sentry post. Three figures were standing in the dusky road.

"Halt! Who comes there?" one of them sang out.

It was the voice of Margaret. Its challenge was more like a phrase of music than a demand. He dismounted.

"I am one of the great army of lovers," said he.

"Advance and give the countersign," she commanded.

A moment he held her in his embrace and then he whispered: "I love you."

"The countersign is correct, but before I let you pass, give me one more look into your heart."

"As many as you like—but—why?"

"So I may be sure that you do not blame England for the folly of her King."

"I swear it."

"Then I shall enlist with you against the tyrant. He has never been my King."

Lady Hare stood with Mrs. Arnold near the lovers.

"I too demand the countersign," said the latter.

"And much goes with it," said the young man as he kissed her, and then he embraced the mother of his sweetheart and added:

"I hope that you are also to enlist with us."

"No, I am to leave my little rebel with you and return to New York."

Solomon, who had stood back in the edge of the bush, approached them and said to Lady Hare:

"I guess if the truth was known, they's more rebels in England than thar be in Ameriky."

He turned to Jack and added:

"My son, you're a reg'lar Tory privateer—grabbin' for gold. Give 'em one a piece fer me."

Margaret ran upon the old scout and kissed his bearded cheek.

"Reg'lar lightnin' hurler!" said he. "Soon as this 'ere war is over I'll take a bee line fer hum—you hear to me. This makes me sick o' fightin'."

"Will you give me a ride?" Margaret asked her lover. "I'll get on behind you."

Solomon took off the saddle and tightened the blanket girth.

"Thar, 'tain't over clean, but now ye kin both ride," said he.

Soon the two were riding, she in front, as they had ridden long before through the shady, mallowed bush in Tryon County.

"Oh, that we could hear the thrush's song again!"

"I can hear it sounding through the years," he answered. "As life goes on with me I hear many an echo from the days of my youth."

They rode a while in silence as the night fell.

"Again the night is beautiful!" she exclaimed.

"But now it is the beauty of the night and the stars," he answered.

"How they glow!"

"I think it is because the light of the future is shining on them."

"It is the light of peace and happiness. I am glad to be free."

"Soon your people shall be free," he answered her.

"My people?"

"Yes."

"Is the American army strong enough to do it?"

"No."

"The French?"

"No."

"Who then is to free us?"

"God and His ocean and His hills and forests and rivers and these children of His in America, who have been schooled to know their rights. After this King is broken there will be no other like him in England."

They dismounted at Arnold's door.

"For a time I shall have much to do, but soon I hope for great promotion and more leisure," he said.

"Tell me the good news," she urged.

"I expect to be the happiest man in the army, and the master of this house and your husband."

"And you and I shall be as one," she answered. "God speed the day when that may be true also of your people and my people."



2

He kissed her and bade her good night and returned to his many tasks. He had visited the forts and batteries. He had communicated with every outpost. His plan was complete. About midnight, when he and Solomon were lying down to rest, two horsemen came up the road at a gallop and stopped at his door. They were aides of Washington. They reported that the General was spending the night at the house of Henry Jasper, near the ferry, and would reach camp about noon next day.

"Thank God for that news," said the young man. "Solomon, I think that we can sleep better to-night."

"If you're awake two minutes from now you'll hear some snorin'," Solomon answered as he drew his boots. "I ain't had a good bar'foot sleep in a week. I don't like to have socks er luther on when I wade out into that pond. To-night, I guess, we'll smell the water lilies."

Jack was awake for an hour thinking of the great happiness which had fallen in the midst of his troubles and of Thornhill and his message. He heard the two aides going to their quarters. Then a deep silence fell upon the camp, broken only by the rumble of distant thunder in the mountains and the feet of some one pacing up and down between his hut and the house of the General. He put on his long coat and slippers and went out-of-doors.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"Arnold," was the answer. "Taking a little walk before I turn in."

There was a weary, pathetic note of trouble in that voice, long remembered by the young man, who immediately returned to his bed. He knew not that those restless feet of Arnold were walking in the flames of hell. Had some premonition of what had been going on down the river come up to him? Could he hear the feet of that horse, now galloping northward through the valleys and over the hills toward him with evil tidings? No more for this man was the comfort of restful sleep or the joys of home and friendship and affection. Now the touch of his wife's hand, the sympathetic look in her eyes and all her babble about the coming marriage were torture to him. He could not endure it. Worst of all, he was in a way where there is no turning. He must go on. He had begun to know that he was suspected. The conduct of the scout, Solomon Binkus, had suggested that he knew what was passing. Arnold had seen the aides of Washington as they came in. The chief could not be far behind them. He dreaded to stand before him. Compared to the torture now beginning for this man, the fate of Bill Scott on Rock Creek in the wilderness, had been a mercy.

Soon after sunrise came a solitary horseman, wearied by long travel, with a message from Colonel Jameson to Arnold. A man had been captured near Tarrytown with important documents on his person. He had confessed that he was Adjutant-General Andre of Sir Henry Clinton's army. The worst had come to pass. Now treason! disgrace! the gibbet!

Arnold was sitting at breakfast. He arose, put the message in his pocket and went out of the room. The Vulture lay down the river awaiting orders. The traitor walked hurriedly to the boat-landing. Solomon was there. It had been his custom when in camp to go down to the landing every morning with his spy-glass and survey the river. Only one boatman was at the dock.

"Colonel Binkus, will you help this man to take me down to the British ship?" Arnold asked. "I have an engagement with its commander and am half an hour late."

Solomon had had much curiosity about that ship. He wished to see the man who had gone into the bush and then to Smith's with Arnold.

"Sart'n," Solomon answered.

They got into a small barge with the General in the cushioned rear seat, his flag in hand.

"Make what speed you can," said the General.

The oarsmen bent to their task and the barge swept on by the forts. A Yankee sloop overhauled and surveyed them. If its skipper had entertained suspicions they were dissipated by the presence of Solomon Binkus in the barge.

They came up to The Vulture and made fast at its landing stage where an officer waited to receive the General. The latter ascended to the deck. In a moment a voice called from above:

"General Arnold's boatmen may come aboard."

A British war-ship was a thing of great interest to Solomon. Once aboard he began to look about him at the shining guns and their gear and the tackle and the men. He looked for Arnold, but he was not in sight.

Among the crew then busy on the deck, Solomon saw the Tory desperado "Slops," one time of the Ohio River country, with his black pipe in his mouth. Slops paused in his hauling and reeving to shake a fist at Solomon. They were heaving the anchor. The sails were running up. The ship had begun to move. What was the meaning of this? Solomon stepped to the ship's side. The stair had been hove up and made fast. The barge was not to be seen.

"They will put you all ashore below," an officer said to him.

Solomon knew too much about Arnold to like the look of this. The officer went forward. Solomon stepped to the opening in the deck rail, not yet closed, through which he had come aboard. While he was looking down at the water, some ten feet below, a group of sailors came to fill in. His arm was roughly seized. Solomon stepped back. Before him stood the man Slops. An insulting word from the latter, a quick blow from Solomon, and Slops went through the gate out into the air and downward. The scout knew it was no time to tarry.

"A night hawk couldn't dive no quicker ner what I done," were his words to the men who picked him up. He was speaking of that half second of the twenty-fourth of September, 1780. His brief account of it was carefully put down by an officer: "I struck not twenty feet from Slops, which I seen him jes' comin' up when I took water. This 'ere ol' sloop that had overhauled us goin' down were nigh. Hadn't no more'n come up than I felt Slops' knife rip into my leg. I never had no practise in that 'ere knife work. 'Tain't fer decent folks, but my ol' Dan Skinner is allus on my belt. He'd chose the weapons an' so I fetched 'er out. Had to er die. We fit a minnit thar in the water. All the while he had that damn black pipe in his mouth. I were hacked up a leetle, but he got a big leak in him an' all of a sudden he wasn't thar. He'd gone. I struck out with ol' Dan Skinner 'twixt my teeth. Then I see your line and grabbed it. Whar's the British ship now?"

"'Way below Stony P'int an' a fair wind in her sails,' the skipper answered.

"Bound fer New York," said Solomon sorrowfully. "They'd 'a' took me with 'em if I hadn't 'a' jumped. Put me over to Jasper's dock. I got to see Washington quick."

"Washington has gone up the river."

"Then take me to quarters soon as ye kin. I'll give ye ten pounds, good English gold. My God, boys! My ol' hide is leakin' bad."

He turned to the man who had been washing and binding his wounds.

"Sodder me up best ye kin. I got to last till I see the Father."

Solomon and other men in the old army had often used the word "Father" in speaking of the Commander-in-Chief. It served, as no other could, to express their affection for him.

The wind was unfavorable and the sloop found it difficult to reach the landing near headquarters. After some delay Solomon jumped overboard and swam ashore.

What follows he could not have told. Washington was standing with his orderly in the little dooryard at headquarters as Solomon came staggering up the slope at a run and threw his body, bleeding from a dozen wounds, at the feet of his beloved Chief.

"Oh, my Father!" he cried in a broken voice and with tears streaming down his cheeks. "Arnold has sold Ameriky an' all its folks an' gone down the river."

Washington knelt beside him and felt his bloody garments.

"The Colonel is wounded," he said to his orderly. "Go for help."

The scout, weak from the loss of blood, tried to regain his feet but failed. He lay back and whispered:

"I guess the sap has all oozed out o' me but I had enough."

Washington was one of those who put him on a stretcher and carried him to the hospital.

When he was lying on his bed and his clothes were being removed, the Commander-in-Chief paid him this well deserved compliment as he held his hand:

"Colonel, when the war is won it will be only because I have had men like you to help me."

Soon Jack came to his side and then Margaret. General Washington asked the latter about Mrs. Arnold.

"My mother is doing what she can to comfort her," Margaret answered.

Solomon revived under stimulants and was able to tell them briefly of the dire struggle he had had.

"It were Slops that saved me," he whispered.

He fell into a deep and troubled sleep and when he awoke in the middle of the night he was not strong enough to lift his head. Then these faithful friends of his began to know that this big, brawny, redoubtable soldier was having his last fight. He seemed to be aware of it himself for he whispered to Jack:

"Take keer o' Mirandy an' the Little Cricket."

Late the next day he called for his Great Father. Feebly and brokenly he had managed to say:

"Jes' want—to—feel—his hand."

Margaret had sat beside him all day helping the nurse.

A dozen times Jack had left his work and run over for a look at Solomon. On one of these hurried visits the young man had learned of the wish of his friend. He went immediately to General Washington, who had just returned from a tour of the forts. The latter saw the look of sorrow and anxiety in the face of his officer.

"How is the Colonel?" he asked.

"I think that he is near his end," Jack answered. "He has expressed a wish to feel your hand again."

"Let us go to him at once," said the other. "There has been no greater man in the army."

Together they went to the bedside of the faithful scout. The General took his hand. Margaret put her lips close to Solomon's ear and said:

"General Washington has come to see you."

Solomon opened his eyes and smiled. Then there was a beauty not of this world in his homely face. And that moment, holding the hand he had loved and served and trusted, the heroic soul of Solomon Binkus went out upon "the lonesome trail."

Jack, who had been kneeling at his side, kissed his white cheek.

"Oh, General, I knew and loved this man!" said the young officer as he arose.

"It will be well for our people to know what men like him have endured for them," said Washington.

"I shall have to learn how to live without him," said Jack. "It will be hard."

Margaret took his arm and they went out of the door and stood a moment looking off at the glowing sky above the western hills.

"Now you have me," she whispered.

He bent and kissed her.

"No man could have a better friend and fighting mate than you," he answered.



3

"'We spend our years as a tale that is told,'" Jack wrote from Philadelphia to his wife in Albany on the thirtieth of June, 1787: "Dear Margaret, we thought that the story was ended when Washington won. Five years have passed, as a watch in the night, and the most impressive details are just now falling out. You recall our curiosity about Henry Thornhill? When stopping at Kinderhook I learned that the only man of that name who had lived there had been lying in his grave these twenty years. He was one of the first dreamers about Liberty. What think you of that? I, for one, can not believe that the man I saw was an impostor. Was he an angel like those who visited the prophets? Who shall say? Naturally, I think often of the look of him and of his sudden disappearance in that Highland road. And, looking back at Thornhill, this thought comes to me: Who can tell how many angels he has met in the way of life all unaware of the high commission of his visitor?