Only a half hour!"

"It will come with clouds," said Tayoga. "Manitou still favors us. He
wills that we shall reach the top."

Robert made another pull and surmounted the crest. Everywhere the
soldiers were pouring over the top. A small body of French sentinels was
taken by surprise. Some of them were captured, and the others escaped in
the dusk to carry the alarm to the city, to Montcalm and to
Bougainville. But Wolfe was on the heights before Quebec. From points
farther up the river came the crash of cannon. It was the French
batteries firing upon the last of the boats, and upon the ships bringing
down the rest of the troops. But it was too late to stop the British
army, which included Americans, who were then British too.

"The dawn is here," said Tayoga.

The east was breaking slowly into dull light. Heavy clouds were floating
up from the west, and the air was damp with the promise of rain. The
British army was forming rapidly into line of battle, but no army was in
front of it. The daring enterprise of the night was a complete success,
and Montcalm had been surprised. He was yet to know that his enemy had
scaled the heights and was before Quebec.

"We've gained a field of battle for ourselves," said Willet, "and it's
now for us to win the battle itself."

The mind of Wolfe was at its supreme activity. A detachment, sent
swiftly, seized the battery at Samos that was firing upon the ships and
boats. Another battery, farther away at Sillery, was taken also, and the
landing of additional troops was covered. A party of Canadians who came
out of the town to see who these intrusive strangers might be, were
driven back in a hurry, and then Wolfe and his officers advanced to
choose their ground, the rangers hovering on the flanks of the regulars.

Where the plateau was only a mile wide and before Quebec, the general
took his stand with the lofty cliffs of the St. Lawrence on the south
and the meadows of the St. Charles on the north. The field, the famous
Plains of Abraham, was fairly level with corn fields and bushes here and
there. A battalion of the Royal Americans was placed to guard the ford
of the St. Charles, but Robert saw the others, his friends among them,
formed up in the front ranks, where the brunt of the battle would fall.
Another regiment was in reserve. The rangers, with Robert, Tayoga and
Willet, still hovered on the flanks.

Robert felt intense excitement. He always believed afterward that he
under