When we were twenty yards or more from where the commanders stood trying to hold their position against the drunken tide of reds and whites, the sergeant halted and looked at us lads inquiringly:
"Well?" I said, irritably, vexed because of my bewilderment. "If you can't explain the situation there is no need to look at us. It beats anything I ever heard of or dreamed about. Have they all lost their senses?"
"Somethin' is goin' mightily wrong!" Sergeant Corney said, impressively, as if he was imparting valuable information.
"Goin' wrong!" Jacob repeated. "I should say it had already gone wrong with a vengeance. Can't you make some kind of a guess, sergeant?"
"Not a bit of it, lad. This 'ere business lays way over anythin' I ever saw in all my experience as a soldier. 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. "I reckon we might walk straight out toward the fort, an' never a man here would give heed to us."
"If we knew exactly what had happened it might be as well for all three to go back to the fort; but there's no knowin' when matters may take a turn, an' we must keep a sharp watch lest through us our people are brought into a trap."
"Why don't you say what you mean, without talkin' all around the subject?" I cried, nervously. "What have you got in your mind?"