Surprisingly, he laughed. “Well, fortunes of war! That’s done—all a part of the mess behind us! What I started to say is this: I’ve had enough to do with New Englanders to know they’re all right, taking ’em by and large—all right! If you men do scout duty, you’ll work under my orders, and I expect those orders to be obeyed. If anyone feels he can’t obey orders, he shouldn’t hesitate to say so. There’s plenty that can’t in this army! Probably there’s no help for it, only I don’t want any of ’em! I’d rather have ’em attached to Hazen, who has trouble obeying orders himself!”

He seemed to be listening for a reply. I was glad when Nason said quietly: “You don’t need to send these men to Hazen, General! I’ve been watching ’em. They’re all right.”

From the manner in which Cap Huff heaved himself about, he had something to say. He prefaced his words with an explosive cough. “Hazen? Colonel Hazen? Seems like I heard that name before! Who was it lied to Schuyler about what he’d find in Canada when he started up to take Montreal? Wasn’t that Hazen?”

Arnold’s face was dark, and the name seemed to irk him. “Hazen!” he growled. “Yes, that was Hazen—always a thorn in the flesh! Always the starting-point of trouble and disaster! It seems as if there can’t ever be an army without a Hazen in it!”

Jumping up from his desk, he went to stand beside the rough map on the wall. The broad St. Lawrence swept diagonally across it; Quebec in the upper right-hand corner, and in the lower left the monstrous divergence of river channels around the high land of Montreal. Halfway between the two was the broad oval of Lake St. Peter, with the Richelieu River extending straight downward from the western end to merge with Lake Champlain.

“You don’t know it yet,” he told us, “but scout duty’ll bring you strange orders. Your orders’ll be between you and me. What you hear from me is our business—yours and mine: nobody else’s! There’ll be times when you’ll be supposed to know what’s going on; but if you try to find out what’s going on in Canada, you’re going to hear wild tales. You want to be careful what you believe. Don’t believe too much. I don’t like to see people misled; so if you’re still of a mind to serve under me, I’ll supply you with your first batch of information, just to make sure you start to stock the right goods.”