The colonel consented promptly.
“It is a good idea,” he said. “I should have thought of it myself.”
But then colonels don’t always think of everything.
Whitestone was very willing.
“I don’t think anything will happen here before we get back,” he said, looking off in the direction of Burgoyne’s army.
In a half hour, good horses under us, we were galloping southward. We expected to reach Albany in four hours.
For a half hour we rode along, chiefly in silence, each occupied with his own thoughts. Then I saw Whitestone fumbling in the inside pocket of his waistcoat, and I knew that the pipe was coming. He performed the feat of lighting it and smoking it without diminishing speed, and looked at me triumphantly. I said nothing, knowing that no reply was needed.
My thoughts—and it was no trespass upon my soldierhood—were elsewhere. I hold that I am not a sentimental fellow, but in the ride to Albany I often saw the face of Kate Van Auken—Mrs. Captain Chudleigh that was to be—a girl who was nothing to me, of course. Yet I was glad that she was not a Tory and traitor, and I hoped Chudleigh would prove to be the right sort of man.
“I’ll be bound you’re thinking of some girl,” said Whitestone suddenly, as he took his pipe from his mouth and held the stem judicially between his thumb and forefinger.
“Why?” I asked.