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There's one thing certain, howsomever, which is that jest now an hundred of our people could walk through the entire encampment without bein' called upon to spill a drop of blood." "Well?" I asked again, as the old man ceased speaking. "Colonel Gansevoort must know how mixed up is this 'ere army." "We can go back an' tell him," Jacob replied, promptly.
After the single cannon which Colonel Gansevoort had caused to be brought in was discharged, the reinforcements betook themselves to their muskets, for our frontiersmen were more accustomed to the use of small arms than big guns, and the tide surged this way and that, with the fate of the fort trembling more than once in the balance, until I had before my eyes only great billows of feathered forms, which rose and fell, advanced and were forced back, until I was well-nigh bewildered.
Leger was near at hand when the first cask of rum was broached? "It is no use to speculate as to how this thing came about," I said; "but it strikes me that you ought to post yourself so far as to be able to tell Colonel Gansevoort, or whoever he sends in command of the detachment, exactly where the blow may best be struck, for just now all we know is regardin' the row close hereabout."
There was one odd thing I noted while turning away, sick at heart, which was that those friends of the deserters, the men whose voices had been raised highest against Colonel Gansevoort because he would not surrender the fort at St.
"Why, man, Colonel Gansevoort himself sent us back to request that you remain here until he signals, so that everything may be prepared for your comin', and we, knowin' how important it was you delay until the proper moment, risked our lives twenty times over in the effort to bring the word."
"You would not live to get two hundred yards away," Colonel Gansevoort replied, speaking not unkindly. "The enemy are doubtless on the alert for some such attempt on our part, since knowing we are not overly burdened with food."
"Sleep," said Lana briefly; and I saw how pale she was, kneeling there beside the opened box and sorting out the simple clothing they had brought with them. For a few minutes longer we conversed, talking of Otsego and of our friends there; and I learned how Colonel Gansevoort had left with his regiment and Lieutenant-Colonel Willet, and was marching hither with Clinton after all.
Colonel Gansevoort asked, with no slight tinge of impatience in his tone, as if he did not care to hear the old soldier summing up all the situation. "Meanin' that we are runnin' no greater risks in goin' back to General Herkimer, or at least not many more, than by tryin' to gain admission to the fort."
It was Colonel Gansevoort himself whom I saw, and he asked, after glancing over the list of names: "How does it happen that you lads arrived at a decision so quickly? Desertion is a very serious offence, and, because of the lesson which others may receive, should be punished severely."
"Whatever they've got on hand seems to be somethin' that'll last well through the night," Sergeant Corney said, as he lay amid the bushes watching the various groups of men, both white and red. "If Colonel Gansevoort could only know what's goin' on at this minute, I allow he'd make such a sortie as would raise this siege in quick order.
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