There was something more than exciting in the ride of that lonely figure between the lines and down the hill to the rolling stump-filled valley between. The day had turned grayer and more gloomy, and dusk was close upon us. It almost seemed that Arnold rode not only a race with death, but a race with some dark force that strove to reach us first. He rode hunched over, as if to lift his galloping mare over the stumps she sometimes had to jump; and the mare, grotesquely elongated by her straining, outstretched head, had the appearance of fleeing from an awful threat.

Those around me fired perfunctorily at the stockade above us; then fumbled with their powder horns and ramrods, clumsy for once in their reloading, because of the intensity with which they watched Arnold’s mare. They watched and breathed noisily: made slow play with their ramrods: shot hurriedly at the stockade: turned again to watch intently. “The damned fool!” they muttered. “Where’s he going? What’s he think he’s doing? What’s he want?”

Other American troops, we saw, had entered the valley and were marching toward us on the road we ourselves had followed. They were coming fast, and they were Continentals, for we could see white belts crossed on their chests. Arnold spurred toward them. We could hear his voice, now; his high-pitched, strident voice. We caught the rasping tones in which he was calling, even though the words were indistinguishable.

There were quick movements among those oncoming troops. They moved like dry leaves, caught by a sudden breeze. They eddied and spread out. From them came a confused shouting.

We saw Arnold gallop to a point abreast of their center and pull his horse to an abrupt stop. The column of men billowed toward him, running. His horse wheeled and went straight away from them, heading for the shallow valley that divided the hill at whose foot we stood from that other hill on which cannon still boomed and musketry rattled.

So busy had we been with our own stockaded hill, and with our efforts to pick off the Germans behind the stockade, that we had paid no attention to this shallow valley, except to note that it contained two log cabins, seemingly deserted. Now we saw they were not deserted, for from their windows and between their logs came jets of flame. Men in suits of green-fringed buckskin ran from the doors to kneel behind near-by bushes and fire at the charging troops.

“Now how in Tophet did he know them Canadians was there?” Doc Means demanded. “Guess we’d ’a’ knowed it ourselves if them cabins had been close enough to us! We’d ’a’ got a cross-fire from ’em before this—but they been laying so low I’d ’a’ needed a dowsing rod to find ’em!”