“No!” I said shortly. “The only way we can help the one you’re thinking of is to stop the British. I had something else in mind.”

Nason nodded. “Go ahead!”

I took the stranger by the front of the shirt and spoke with a confidence I was far from feeling. “Look here! You don’t know how lucky you are! You’ve been closer to death than you’d be if you were down with the black smallpox! We’re going to turn you loose so you can go back and tell your friends something! You go back and tell ’em that all the letters and messages they’ve tried to send haven’t done ’em a bit of good! You tell ’em we caught the messengers that tried to spread the stories about the silver bullets—just the way we caught you! You tell ’em we caught the men that tried to carry Burgoyne’s messages to Howe—just the way we caught you! Tell ’em they won’t get far with a commanding general who spends his nights as yours does. We know all about it! Tell ’em we’re letting you go because you know now what’s waiting for you if you ever come back again. The same thing’s waiting for every Britisher that sets foot on the Hudson. I’ll tell you what it is! A grave in the belly of a wolf, four thousand miles from England!”

*    *    *

… Five days later, on the 27th of July, Burgoyne’s Indians broke through to the Hudson. The length of time they spent there, on that day, was measured in a few short minutes; but the results of what they did will never be measured. The echoes of their yells were heard in royal palaces and humble homes. Nay, those echoes lingered for weeks and months; on through the passage of unending years. They toppled kings from their thrones; raised statesmen to power; altered the circumstances of distant peoples. They ruined nations and they saved nations. They set wheels to turning that, for all I know, will continue their crashings and their rumblings when those who read these lines are dust.

We had been warned, the night before, by Natanis and Joseph Phipps. The Indians, they said, were camped with the British light infantry, three miles away, and they were dancing. They had danced all day, showing that something important was afoot; and probably they would dance all night. On the following day they would move. How far they would move, Natanis said, there was no telling; but some were sure to come to the edge of the forest, so to take back to Burgoyne a report of how many American troops were left at Fort Edward.

When Nason heard this news, he scratched his head. “If we could snare a couple to take down to Schuyler and Arnold,” he said, “it might be pretty valuable. Let’s set a trap.”