True to his word, General Putnam sent George Prentiss a handful of gold coins next morning and George, toward noon, engaged a horse of the landlord which he promised to send back by a wagoner on the day following. Mounting, he set out up Broadway, turned into the Bloomingdale Road, and then along the Hudson until he came to the sharp turn to the right which brought him into the Kingsbridge Road not far from Burdett’s Ferry. Directly ahead, Harlem Heights bulked densely; to the east could be seen the wooded sides of Mt. Morris, while from the high shoulder of the road, an occasional glint was to be had of the Harlem River as it slipped along toward the Sound.
The young man drew up his horse at this point and looked about him.
“The reports placed the ‘Wheat Sheaf’ at no great distance from here,” said he to himself. “And as it’s wearing toward evening I may as well take my dinner there.”
As he sat his horse he heard the ring of a hammer striking hearty blows upon an anvil; then a sledge joined in and a clangor of sound swept upward. George shook the rein, and about fifty yards further on, in a sheltered spot a little back from the road, he came upon a small smithy.
George dismounted and stood watching the smith and his assistant for a space; then the iron was apparently beaten into its true shape, for it was laid aside and the two stood mopping their faces with damp towels.
“Good-day,” greeted George.
“The top of it to yourself, sure,” returned the smith, who was a freckled Irishman with fiery red hair and a droll look.
“That seemed like a hard task,” commented the young man, coming nearer.
“Why, then,” returned the smith, “it’s little else we’re getting nowadays. Since they’ve took to fighting all about the place, sorra the bit of work do we get but bayonets, swords as long as your arm and bits like this,” with a jerk of his thumb toward the still glowing forging, “for the big guns.”
The apprentice, a huge limbed youth with a small, sloping head, was observing young Prentiss’s shoulder belt with its heavy hanger, and the pistol butt that protruded from a holster.