We had an even greater surprise when we reached Bemis’s Tavern on the river road. There the road was blocked by entrenchments extending from the cliff to the river, so we turned up the slope to our left and made our way to the heights above Bemis’s Tavern. It was on that high land that Doc had washed the wound in my shoulder (a hurt now entirely healed) on the day Schuyler had heard me speak sharply to the militia.

All those heights, since we had left them, had been fortified. They were rimmed with earthworks in which were bastions and redoubts, with cannon in the embrasures. Enclosed by the earthworks was a city of tents and board shelters grouped around a parade ground; and on the parade ground was a regiment of Continentals, white belts crossed on their chests, drilling smartly before militia companies, which were going through evolutions of their own.

Seeing a young officer directing incoming militiamen where to go, I drew rein beside him and asked whether General Arnold was around. He winked at me in high good humor. “Is he! Is he around!” Words seemed to fail him.

He was a lieutenant, and I gave him a cold look, at which he hastily told me to go straight up the road I was on: then take the road to the north.

“His hut’s on the left,” he said, “just after you get beyond the fortifications.”

We passed through a series of clearings in the forest that covered most of that high land, and located Arnold’s headquarters in a log cabin near a larger house—a cabin little larger than a dog-kennel. I gave my horse to Doc to hold, and explained myself to a sentry. The voice that answered my knock, to my surprise, was Varick’s. I went in to find him copying letters in a book.

“Good,” he said, when he looked up and saw me, “good! I’m glad you’re back! Your friends have been pestering the life out of me to know when to expect you.”

His use of the word “pester” made me instantly apprehensive. “There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“Wrong?” he asked. “Of course not.”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “We heard there’d been a battle. I hope none of my friends were hurt.”

Varick looked at me curiously. “Is that all you’ve heard? That there’s been a battle?”

I said that was all we’d heard.

“You’ve got a lot to learn.” Then he added, “Since General Schuyler was called down, Livingston and I have the honor to be helping General Arnold. Livingston’s his aide, and I do what I can.” Varick spoke feelingly. “General Arnold has been a true friend to General Schuyler, and it’s a privilege to be associated with him.”