He paused, and added, “Burgoyne, eh? Hessians and Indians, eh? Well, we’ll see about that!”

He left us, hurrying down the hall and shouting for Wilkinson. A moment later he tore open the front door and leaped down the steps; and the restless quiet that ensued reminded me of that aboard a vessel when a squall has passed over it, leaving it safe but shaken.

XIII

IT WAS almost two o’clock when Captain Wilkinson came out from headquarters and found the seven of us sitting around a fire we had kindled on the opposite sidewalk, the night being overcast and as black as the inside of a stove, and therefore cold. The general, he informed us, was now able to see us. When he had given us the message, he moved his jawbones so that a pulse seemed to throb slowly and angrily in the lower part of his face. “Don’t you know,” he added, “you oughtn’t to light a fire close to headquarters like this?”

Cap Huff heaved himself to his feet. “Why not?”

Captain Wilkinson was patronizing. “Why not? Why because it’s not military. It’s not dignified.”

Cap Huff seemed to mull over this explanation; and at length he appeared to find reason in it—which surprised me; for to me it seemed no explanation at all. Nonetheless, Cap said, in as mealy a voice as I ever heard, “Well, it ain’t, now you speak of it. It certainly ain’t dignified! I dunno what we could ’a’ been thinkin’ of!”

On that Captain Wilkinson turned away with a satisfied air, and we followed him into headquarters. As we went, I thought to myself that no matter how military Captain Wilkinson might be, he was no woodsman, since he walked with his toes turned out, and with gingerly deliberateness, as though he trod on ostrich eggs.

The general was writing when we crowded into his office and paraded before his desk. The four men we had brought, according to orders, were Nathaniel, Verrieul, Tom Bickford and Doc Means; and in that dim office, lighted only by the four candles on Arnold’s paper-strewn desk, the seven of us, in our shapeless tow-cloth smocks, had small appearance of soldierliness or ability. Yet this general, in his bright uniform of blue and buff, seemed to find nothing strange in our appearance; for he looked up at us as if we gave him actual pleasure. “Well, well!” he said, “I haven’t smelled an asafoetida bag since I worked for the Lathrops in New Haven. Who’s wearing it?”

Cap Huff pushed Doc Means forward. “This is Doc Means. He’s more useful than he smells.”

“You’re a doctor?” Arnold asked.

Doc wavered and looked helpless. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t like to say I was a regular doctor—not from what I know about some of ’em.”