When we asked the reason for all this talking and staring, they claimed to have heard there had been a battle, though they couldn’t give us the source of the rumor. Seemingly it had sprung up in the night, like a toadstool, but vague as it was, it led us to keep right on going.

“It’s what I’ve been afraid of!” I told Doc. “If our troops stop the British and find Nathaniel behind the British lines—–” I couldn’t go on. “For God’s sake, try to get some speed out of that nag of yours.”

“Listen,” Doc said, “this nag has carried me nigh onto four hundred miles and ain’t showed no speed yet. Neither has yours, so what’s the use of talking like that? If there’s been a battle, it’s all over! Half the trouble in this world comes from trying to figure how to change things that can’t be changed, on account of having happened.”

Fret and fume as I would, we couldn’t go faster, and it wasn’t until the 22nd of September that we reached the Hudson again and saw once more the rolling fields above Stillwater, and north of them the misty Heights of Saratoga. We crossed the river on a scow into an atmosphere as altered, since we had left Stillwater in August, as the leaves had been altered by September frosts.

In place of the surly, ragged, unshaven men of the previous month, straggling furtively away in little groups and companies, we now saw, moving briskly along the river road, as if bound for a fair, an unbroken stream of men afoot, messengers on horseback, officers in blue uniforms, farmers driving herds of cows, army teamsters bawling angrily at lethargic oxen. Here and there the stream split to flow around ammunition carts and supply wagons.

“Look at that!” Doc said, when we rode up from the ferry and walked our horses into Stillwater. “Look at that! They got shoes! Every last one of ’em’s got on shoes with soles!”

It was true. Not a man was barefoot. Their breeches were homespun, but without rents or holes. Their hair was combed and tied. They looked well fed and healthy; and what was most astonishing, there was no weariness or discouragement about them.

Their faces were tanned and cleanly shaven: they were alert, as men in a city are alert. They were friendly, too, as if they owned something in common. It was the same sort of friendliness I had often found among American seamen in foreign ports.