fficient sense to understand it was at this place we must effect an
entrance, if anywhere, and I ought to have known at the time, for, after
waving his arms to attract attention, he walked along the wall,
disappearing near what was known as the "horn-works," which as yet were
enclosed only by a stockade of logs.

To summon the Minute Boys and bring them to the edge of the clearing was
but the work of a few moments, and then was done that which I venture to
say has seldom been accomplished during such a siege as was then in
progress.

For an armed party of nearly thirty to cross an open plain, supposedly
under the very eyes of the enemy's sentinels, without being discovered, is
something of which to boast, yet we Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley did
it without raising an alarm.

When the foremost of us, among whom I was, gained that portion of the
fortification of which I have already spoken, the sergeant was lowering a
long ladder over the stockade, and up this we clambered without delay, the
entire party getting inside the fort within two minutes after the ascent
was begun.

What a time of congratulation that was! The garrison pressed around to
praise us and pat themselves on the head, because we had come at what was,
for them, an opportune time. Not only was the fort reinforced by no
inconsiderable number, but we brought with us fairly good information as
to the condition of affairs in the enemy's camp.

The men were yet praising and thanking us for having come at such a time,
when an officer approached with the word that Colonel Gansevoort wished to
speak with the leaders of the party.

"That means you, Noel," the sergeant said, patting me on the shoulder.
"The colonel quite rightly believes that we can give him valuable
information, an' is eager to have it."

"But I am not the leader of the party," I said, finding time to be a bit
bashful, now that the imminent danger was passed.

"Who is, if not the captain of the company?" the old man asked, with a
smile.

"You, an' you always were when we were at home, Sergeant Corney, therefore
are you doubly the leader now, after having brought us safely in from the
encampment."

The old soldier flatly refused to present himself as being in command of
the Minute Boys, and there is no saying how long we might have wrangled
among ourselves had not Colonel Willett, impatient to see us, come up just
at that moment.

After asking a few questions, he settled the matter