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Updated: May 27, 2025
The Captain drew his sword and flashed a dark light upon Solomon and called, out: "Hello, Binkus! What the hell do you want?" "Who be ye?" Solomon asked. "Preston." "Preston! Cat's blood an' gunpowder! What's the matter?" Preston, an old comrade of Solomon, said to him: "Go around to headquarters and tell them we are cut off by a mob and in a bad mess. I'm a little scared.
A Yankee sloop overhauled and surveyed them. If its skipper had entertained suspicions they were dissipated by the presence of Solomon Binkus in the barge. They came up to The Vulture and made fast at its landing stage where an officer waited to receive the General. The latter ascended to the deck. In a moment a voice called from above: "General Arnold's boatmen may come aboard."
In the army he was known as "old Solomon Binkus," not by reason of his age, for he was only about thirty-eight, but as a mark of deference. Those who followed him in the bush had a faith in his wisdom that was childlike. "I had had my feet in a pair o' sieves walkin' the white sea a fortnight," he went on. Gol' ding my pictur'! It seemed as if the wind were a-tryin' fer to rub it off the slate.
"I'll bet ye a pint o' powder an' a fish hook them Injuns is over east o' here." It was his favorite wager that of a pint of powder and a fish hook. They came out upon high ground and reached the valley trail just as the sun was rising. The fog had lifted. Mr. Binkus stopped well away from the trail and listened for some minutes.
"I wish him to be relieved of all trying details. You are an able and prudent man. I shall make you his chief aide with the rank of Brigadier-General. He needs rest and will concern himself little with the daily routine. In my absence, you will be the superintendent of the camp, and subject to orders I shall leave with you. Colonel Binkus will be your helper.
"Your stations have been chosen by lot. Irons, yours is there. Take your ground, gentlemen." The young men walked to their places and at this point the graphic Major Solomon Binkus, whose keen eyes observed every detail of the scene, is able to assume the position of narrator, the words which follow being from a letter he wrote to John Irons of Albany.
He had set out by night to get ahead of them while Hare and his other guide started for the fort. Binkus knew every mile of the wilderness and had canoes hidden near its bigger waters. He had crossed the lake on which his party had been camping, and the swamp at the east end of it and was soon far ahead of the marauders.
The two travelers sat down with the chief, who talked freely to Solomon Binkus. "If white man comes to our village cold, we warm him; wet, we dry him; hungry, we feed him," he said. "When Injun man goes to Albany and asks for food, they say, 'Where's your money? Get out, you Injun dog! The white man he comes with scaura and trades it for skins. It steals away the wisdom of the young braves.
Binkus said, "an' the noise was like a battle, but Jack kept a-goin' an' me settin' light an' my mind a-pushin' like a scairt deer." Water was flooding over the ice which had broken near shore, but the skater jumped the crack before it was wider than a man's hand and took the sled with him.
I think the stage is being set for the second great adventure in our history. Let us have no fear of it. Our land is sown with the new faith. It can not fail." This conviction was the result of some rather full days in the British capital. Solomon Binkus had left the city with Preston to visit Sir Jeffrey Amherst in his country seat, near London.
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