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.”

He dismissed me; and I, encouraged by his optimism as well as by the knowledge that at last I had friends to whom to turn, hurried to the south corner of the fort’s grass-grown embankments.

I came suddenly on Tom Bickford, crouched over a slab of curly maple, carving from it a new stock for his musket, and saw beyond him other familiar figures.

Tom, hearing my step, darted a quick, hard look at me—a look in which I saw none of the gentleness that had first drawn me to him. Then he leaped up to clap me on the shoulders. When the others joined us, their faces looked hard and forbidding, as had Tom’s. It was a hardness that must, I thought, have come from the trials they had borne. They were a staunch lot—Steven Nason, a half-drawn map in his hand; Joseph Phipps, a trim figure in a green hunting frock; Cap Huff, swinging an eighteen-inch trout fresh from the Hudson; Natanis, respectfully studying the eagle tattooed on Doc Means’s chest. The sight of these old friends of mine, all together, was a sharp reminder that Nathaniel ought to be among them; and to conceal my feelings I coughed harshly and said to Tom, “Well, I see you broke your musket.”

Tom dropped his hand from my shoulder and glanced at his musket, as if surprised to see it there. “Yes, Cap’n Peter. I broke it on a Britisher up at Hubbardton. We ain’t hardly had a minute to call our own since then—not till today.” In a hesitant voice he added, “We heard about Nathaniel. Cap told us. He can’t be right in his head, Cap’n Peter.”