When at length he emerged, a stocky figure tense and resilient beside the calmer Schuyler, his eye fell on us at once and he warmed our hearts with his smile. He gave Schuyler a little appreciative nod: then came close to us; and impressive he was in his major general’s uniform. Those who say Arnold was a small man are misguided in the use of words. He wasn’t tall, but he had the muscle, the nerve, the sturdiness, the endurance of a giant.

“Well!” he said. “Well! Ready for trouble!” He wagged his head as if in complacent recollection of some brave adventure that he had shared separately with each one of us. To Schuyler he said, “I take this kindly, General! I’m not accustomed to such thoughtful treatment!”

“My friend,” Schuyler said, “you may be sure of receiving whatever we have to give.” He turned and went back into his marquee. Arnold frowned weightily—to cover his feelings, I suppose.

“The cat must have got your tongues!” he said, as if exasperated. “Not a word have I had out of any one of you! I thought you’d deserted me!” He gathered up the front of my hunting shirt in his hand, feeling its texture; then stood back a little and looked me up and down.

“I couldn’t understand about you,” he said. “I was positive you’d been captured, and thought you’d been sent back with the men from the Washington galley, probably. When I wrote you at Arundel, and found you’d never come there, I couldn’t believe it! What did you do? Spend the winter with the British?”

“No sir. The Indians carried us to the westward.”

“Carried who?”

“Doc and Verrieul and me.”

“What’s happened to your brother?” Arnold asked at once. He was the sharpest, quickest man I ever knew. His mind worked like lightning, and somehow plunged straight to the heart of everything.

“I don’t know what became of him, General. He was hurt, as you know; and when the Indians took us, they left him.”

His eyes bored into mine. “They left him, did they? Was he badly hurt?”

“Yes sir. He was unconscious. Doc brought him to his senses, almost, but he slipped away again.”

“Well,” he said. “Well! And the Indians just left him lying there, did they?”

“Yes sir.”

“And they didn’t scalp him?”

I shook my head. I had made a mistake, I saw. When captives can’t travel, Indians scalp them. They often waste food and powder and rum, but they never waste scalps.

“Well!” Arnold said again. His face was expressionless. He looked slowly from me to the others. “Where’s Verrieul?”

“Dead. St. Clair’s scouts shot him when we came across from the British lines.”