“This is the best news yet,” cried Dave, after the letter had been read twice. “Sam, my heart is as light as air!”
“So is mine, Dave. It’s a heavy weight removed, eh? I could ’most dance a jig.”
“What a big fight it must have been, and how sad to think that General Wolfe had to die just as he accomplished what he had planned so many months.”
“’Twas better to die thus than to have the fate of General Montcalm,” replied Barringford. “To die in victory is nothing to dying in defeat.”
“I guess you must be right.” Dave paused for a moment. “Now Quebec is taken, what do you think will be the next move for our army to make?”
“That is hard to say, lad. Maybe the French will come back at Quebec before long. But come, let us get back to the camp-fire. It is too cold to stay here, even while discussin’ such good news.”
Barringford was right about it being cold. It was the middle of September and the air was nipping. A few days later came a cold rain that seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of Dave’s bones, for the lad from Virginia was not used to such a climate as that of upper New York State.
“Ugh, but it’s awful!” he said, as he came in from two hours of guard duty, with his clothing soaked. “It’s enough to give one his death of cold.”
“Strip yourself, and rub down good,” said Barringford. “It certainly is rough on a fellow o’ Southern blood.”
“I hope the rain don’t last.”