“Those Germans,” bellowed the voice, “they’re about the size of a haystack, only shaped more like lemons. You got to watch ’em for as much as five minutes to see whether they’re alive or not. They got boots that’ll hold as much as eight gallons apiece and hats like a leather fire bucket. They got coats made out of felt, so when you fire a bullet at ’em it sounds like hitting a feather bed with a axe-helve; and they hang things all over themselves, thicker’n what you see on a tin-peddler’s cart. When they’re moving real fast, they scoot along as much as a mile every day or so. If them Germans was all fifteen years old and started today to walk from here to Albany, they’d have married grandchildren before they got there! Up at Hubbardton I see one of ’em start to brush a caterpillar out of his hair, but before he touched it, it had a cocoon and then come out and flew around—an awful pretty yellow butterfly! What I mean, them Germans is kind of slow! I’d ’a’ tooken one of ’em and brought him along, only I didn’t have no ammunition wagon with me, and he’d ’a’ been an all-fired nuisance to manage unless you mounted him on wheels like a cannon. The next time I see one—–”

The bawler’s eye caught mine. It was Cap Huff. He broke off and came pushing toward us through the crowd.

“For God’s sake, where you been?” he demanded. “I been standing here watching for you, ever since we got in with St. Clair this morning. If you got any business to do, hurry up and get it out of the way and then come over to my lean-to under the southwest corner of the fort. Stevie’s there, and hereafter you work for I and Stevie!”

LX

WHETHER Cap Huff had told the truth about the British army’s German allies, I didn’t know; but contrary to my expectations, he had told it about my own situation in the army. When I reported my news to General Schuyler, I thought I had never seen a man more cheerful or more confident. “A two-mile bridge!” he exclaimed. “Why, they can’t build that in less than a week, not even after they’ve cleared away the obstructions! After all, they might be going to give us time to raise an army big enough to stop ’em!” He puckered his lips and wrinkled his eyes in high good humor, adding that he’d send five hundred men with felling-axes, under General Nixon, to join General Fellows: then, as an afterthought, told me I needn’t return to Fort Ann. “We’ve just had word,” he said, “that General Arnold’s on his way to join us. He’ll need scouts as soon as he gets here, and you’re to be among ’em. Until he arrives, take your instructions from Captain Nason.”