At the sight of the vanishing bateaux, a blind frenzy gripped the soldiers who still moved toward us, laden with stores. As if demented, they cast down their burdens and hurried off, pale and sweating, tripping and falling.

Whether the schooners received orders to move out, I can’t say; but move out they did. The colonel scrambled back aboard the Gates. “Get the rest of those sick men aboard,” he ordered. As Doc Means came to help me, we saw a cart approaching, piled high with bundles and drawn by a single scrawny ox. At the edge of the dock, the waggoner jumped from the front end of the cart and, without a backward glance, was swallowed in the ragged crew that filled the road. At the same moment an officer popped in sight from behind the cart, threatening death and destruction to those who refused to unload it. He caught man after man by the arm, and we heard him saying “It’s the general’s baggage! Damn you, sir, lend a hand with General St. Clair’s baggage! Get this baggage aboard a boat! It’s the general’s!”

When they profanely wrenched themselves free, he offered them money to unload the cart—offered them rum: all the rum they could drink. They only cursed. They told him foul things to do with the baggage—with the cart—even with the ox. They spoke hideously of his money and his rum, and called the general unspeakable names. They cursed everything and everybody, and kept straight on, an uncontrolled and uncontrollable rabble, toward Hubbardton. The officer gave it up and went away, running.

There was a rosy flush in the eastern sky. From far off, on the far side of Mount Independence, we heard musketry fire—volley firing.

The Trumbull galley cast off and moved out into the lake, raggedly propelled by her long sweeps. Kidder ran down from the quarterdeck of the Gates and angrily summoned us.

A sorrel mare clattered down the muddy road and onto the dock.

The rider was St. Clair himself. His face, white and puffy, streamed perspiration, and his nose and eyes were red. He spurred his horse close up to the Gates and looked us over coolly enough. To me he seemed pathetic—a puny, baffled figure against the towering background of Mount Independence. Colonel Long climbed on the bulwarks to receive him.

“Pull out any time,” St. Clair said. “If you can do so, save my papers. They’re in that ox cart. Pay no attention to the rest of the baggage, but take my papers with you if it’s possible.” He removed his hat, drew a handkerchief from it, and mopped his face: then stared at the handkerchief as though he expected to find it soiled. I was sorry for him, and I know he felt sorry for himself.