"That is the signal for us to advance."
"Advance where?" he asked, in perplexity. "Surely it is not possible for us to get in at any point."
"We can at least hold communication with those inside if we creep to the new portion of the fort, which as yet is only a stockade--the same place where the sergeant and I had converse with Colonel Gansevoort."
It appears, as I finally learned, that the sergeant believed I would have sufficient 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."