For a time I thought there had been a mistake as to the whereabouts of the fleet, even though Waterbury, a mile ahead of us in the Washington, held his course due north, straight into the insignificant passage between Valcour and the mainland. I saw no fleet in the passage, nor anywhere near it.

Then I saw Waterbury haul his wind. At the same moment a puff of white bloomed amid the reds, greens and yellows of the island. Another white ball blossomed, and another, and the heavy boom of great guns struck against us. By looking hard I found a mast. Then, as if that one had been a key to a puzzle, a whole grove of them was visible, and the dull gray of furled canvas.

The guns roared on, saluting the Washington. She slid in among the masts. As her sails came down, she, too, seemed almost to vanish.

The men, hunkered beneath our low bulwarks for the warmth denied them by their torn and scanty garments, grumbled among themselves. I think Cap Huff spoke an almost universal thought when he dropped from the look-out steps on the mainmast with a thud that shook the quarterdeck, declaring violently that you might as well cooper a fleet in a hogshead as hide it behind an island where nobody could see it.

Tom Bickford had been exercising the men on the furling and lashing of lateen sails. He hurried back to the quarterdeck, his face all smiles. “Well, sir,” Tom said, “that’s the smartest anchorage ever I saw! How’d you like to have to root them out, Cap’n Peter?”

Nason turned on him. “Look here! If you haven’t anything good to say, don’t say it.”

“That’s right!” Cap bawled. “If there’s anything I hate, it’s sarcasm! If you got anything to say, say it—unless it ain’t fitten to say, as Stevie says.”

Tom took the tiller from the helmsman. “I better take her in, Cap’n Peter,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to make any kind of mess: not with everybody there watching.” He turned a puzzled gaze on Cap Huff. “Sarcasm? When was I sarcastic? I don’t aim to be sarcastic about anybody.”

“No, I s’pose not!” Cap Huff said. “I s’pose when you called that the smartest anchorage you ever saw, you just wanted to utter a Christian sentiment.”

“What’s the matter with the anchorage?” I asked.

Cap eyed me doubtfully: then turned to peer into the channel between Valcour and the main. By now we were in it, almost, running fast before the smart south wind. With each passing moment we saw more clearly how the fleet was ranged.

Midway of Valcour a shoulder juts out toward the New York shore. South of the shoulder is a cup-shaped bay; and it was across the mouth of the bay that the fleet was stretched in half-moon formation.