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Sullivan's duties included the guarding of the fords above Brinton's, and he had become possessed of the unfortunate idea that there were but three of these fordable, and that beyond the three in question there was no place for a distance of twelve miles where the hostile army could cross.
Along the hill-slopes, on the east side of the Brandywine, from Chad's Ford up to Brinton's, a distance of about three miles, the Americans lay on the night of September 10th. Wayne was posted to guard the lower ford, and Sullivan had his own division and those of Stirling and Stephen stretched up along the stream. Greene's division formed the reserve.
Brinton's first action as soon as he got into the cage was to run at the nose of Brutus with his hot iron and drive him back to one end. Rounders fancied he could almost hear the frizzle of the flesh.
We've got to the point haven't we, where in my story, of course the German dressed in Brinton's uniform comes into the English lines. Now what sort of a man would they send in this part of the line, where mining activity is great? I continue the theory, you see; that's all." He looked at Jesson, who made no reply; though without cessation he moistened his lips with his tongue. "A miner."
For a full minute the two men looked into one another's eyes deep down, and read the things that are written underneath, be a man English or German. Then suddenly Jesson smiled slightly and spoke. "You are a clever man, Major Staunton. When will the rifle practice take place?" Thus it ended, the play of which John Brinton's disappearance formed the prologue.
But before the curtain rang down on the epilogue the German told them one or two little things: that John Brinton was alive and well; that the existence of Ginger Stretton, to whom he had alluded so glibly, had only become known to him from a letter in Brinton's coat; that the peculiarities of pimple-faced Charlie had been forced on him by his guide before they met the Sapper.
The auto slips its clutch, and the engine begins to clang and clatter, and somebody off behind a red-hot mountain in the distance begins ringing an enormous bell just as you slide downward into a crater of flame and then you wake up entirely, and the fire-bell is going "clang-clang-clang-clang-clang," while below you hear the ringing crunch of your neighbor's feet on the cold snow, and outside the north window there is a red glare which may be either the end of the world or another exploded lamp in 'Bige Brinton's chicken-incubator; you won't know which until you have stabbed both feet into one pants-leg, crawled all over the cold floor for a missing sock, and run half a mile, double-reefing your nightshirt to keep it from trailing out from under your overcoat.
The man opposite smiled amiably. "I'm glad of that; it's an interesting problem. You see the significance of that small point about the badge, the way in which it connects very intimately Brinton's capture and Dixon's death. So intimately, in fact, does it connect them, that one is almost tempted to assume that the man who killed Dixon was the man in possession of Brinton's uniform.
And that worthy an old and trusted soldier had very positively denied that either of the Pelicans Rampant, which formed the regimental badge, had been missing from his master's coat the previous evening. "Now Mr. Brinton's coat, sir," he remarked thoughtfully, "that did 'ave a badge off, that did. But 'is servant!" He snorted, and dismissed the subject scornfully.
We then add facts of modern experience, about the authenticity of which we, personally, entertain no doubt; and the provisional conclusion appears to be that savages have observed a psychological circumstance which has been ignored by professed psychologists, and which, certainly, does not fit into the ordinary materialistic hypothesis. Mr. Tylor cites Dr. Brinton's Myths of the New World, p. 269.
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