“Listen,” Cap growled, “I know all about it! I went through it with Stevie! There’s only one course to foller: we got to get Stevie. Stevie’ll know what to do! We’re scouts, and we can go where most people can’t. Maybe we can get around behind the British lines some dark night and catch this brother of yours and tell him a thing or two. You let Stevie tell him a few facts and he’ll come away with us, all quiet and peaceable.” He contemplated his knuckles; then dropped a heavy hand upon my shoulder. “Get yourself some sleep.”

I took a last look from the doorway. The sun was just coming up. The guns on the north platform had ceased firing. The advance companies of the British had fallen back out of range. A swarm of Continental troops dragged at cannon near the head of the bridge of boats, at the foot of Ticonderoga. In spite of their raggedness, visible, even, from where we were, they worked fast and alertly. The sight of the British forces hadn’t cowed them.

All around us were big guns, and plenty of them. Below us, near the entrance to the narrow waterway leading to Skenesboro, were five vessels. Two of them had stubby masts and lateen sails. They were the Gates galley and the Trumbull galley, which I had designed and helped to build. The others were the Liberty schooner, the Revenge schooner and the Enterprise sloop—the remnants of the Valcour fleet. Crowded around them were bateaux by the hundred. After all, the place seemed well equipped, and the men ready to fight.

Cap was already stretched upon the floor, and I let myself slack down beside him. I had only a moment of drowsiness before heavy sleep came, but during that moment I seemed to have a long experience—to be in the canoe for days and weeks with Sponge-belly and my friends. And through that power we have in dreams to be in more than one place at the same time, I seemed also to be in the council house, a painted Indian myself among hundreds of my painted brothers—yet all the time I seemed to be telling Ellen Phipps that I had got through to our lines and Ticonderoga, while she, sitting willingly bound and gagged upon the ground before me, looked at me with patient eyes and seemed a little glad to hear me talk.

LVI