Nathaniel offered to get him, whereupon Cap said, “All right: tell him he’s got to go to Crown Point to take command of the Royal Savage. Where’s my rum?”

Doc Means said somebody had discovered Cap’s rum and taken it, but that there had been only a small amount in the barrel anyway—maybe two quarts.

“How do you know there was only two quarts?” Cap asked, but the question was perfunctory: he had other things on his mind.

“Sit down,” I said; “sit down and give us the news. You must be tired after your long trip.”

“No,” Cap said, “I got to have some rum. I been subject to so much discipline up in that damned Ticonderoga that I’m pretty near dried up. Come on, Doc: let’s go over to see the ship carpenters. They got rum, ain’t they?”

He added absent-mindedly that there was no news.

“No news!” I protested. “What’s the reason Arnold sent for Hawley? What happened to the captain of the Royal Savage? What happened to Hazen? Didn’t you go up there to testify on the Hazen court-martial? Where’s Steven Nason? Where’s Whitcomb? What’s the news of the British fleet? How many vessels have they got? What are they doing? How are our vessels getting along?”

“I need some rum,” Cap persisted. “I got a couple of new dice tricks I want to try on those ship carpenters.” He seemed uneasy. “You ain’t heard anything about Whitcomb?”

We said we hadn’t.

“Whitcomb killed a general,” Cap said. He looked behind him, then sat down close to the fire and asked softly whether anybody had a touch of rum—just the merest touch.

Doc Means brought him a flask, and Cap drained it at a gulp. He hiccupped grandly, staring absently into the fire.

“Whitcomb killed a general?” I asked. “What kind of general did he kill?”

“Listen,” Cap said, “did any of you ever hear me tell this feller Whitcomb he ought to kill some generals?”

I said I didn’t remember it.

“Well,” Cap said gloomily, “he claims he got the idea from me, and being as how there’s hell to pay and no pitch hot, I ain’t had a minute’s peace for a week, for fear of what else I might have said to him when I was feeling my rum a little.”

Exasperatedly he added, “I don’t see nothing so terrible about killing a general, if you go behind the British lines to do it, and do it in daytime, all clear and open. The British, they claim it ain’t sporting, but I don’t see why it ain’t. They’d ’a’ killed Whitcomb fast enough, if they’d caught him!”