Like lightning the heavy pistols were drawn; angrily they spat their messengers into the darkness in the direction of the running feet. From the direction of Ticonderoga came a swirl of moving lights. Then a score of men hurried up, Colonel Knox at their head; and their flaring torches lit up the scene.
“You were right, then,” said Knox as he took in the situation at a glance. “And it was just such a trap as we would have walked into blindly.”
A half hour later, the sledges, with their precious burden of guns, crossed the lake at a point higher up; and away they trailed through the wilderness, over the snow, while behind them, among the others, lay Jason Collyer and Abdallah, their darkened eyes turned up toward the starless sky.
[CHAPTER XVIII—CONCLUSION]
The snow was deep and the sledge teams had heavy going at first. But, after a few days, the snow began to pack, and the progress of Colonel Knox’s party became more easy. There was little or no difficulty with the streams; these were frozen solid, for the winter had developed into a remarkably severe one.
However, fresh falls of snow now and then impeded their advance, and they were content to make very few miles a day; but they pushed doggedly on, nevertheless, for they knew that their burden was urgently needed at Cambridge.
It was at Fort George that Ezra and Ben Cooper left the party and rode forward to Boston bearing the news of the expedition’s success.
The lads never forgot the look of triumph that swept into Washington’s face as he read the dispatch. Generals Putnam and Ward and Colonel Prescott were with him at the time and he read the missive aloud to them. It ran:
“‘December 17th.
“‘I hope in sixteen or seventeen days to present to your Excellency a noble train of artillery, the inventory of which I have enclosed.’”