“Yes, and patriotism will carry one a long way,” said the scoutmaster; “but I could never understand that capture—that and Paul Jones’s victory. We’ll look over the ground when we go down there; the doctor told me this morning that he’d see if he couldn’t get us permission to camp a week or so right in the old fort. They say an old underground passage to the lake is still there.”
Harry had listened carelessly to all this, but now an idea came to him.
“You mean to camp in the old fort, sir?” he asked.
“That’s the idea, if we can get permission. We’ll pick up here about the middle of August and spend our last two weeks on historic ground. You know, they’ve been restoring the old fortress after a fashion. A patriotic woman became interested in it, and they’ve made quite a fort of it. You two boys ought to see it. You know, old Ticonderoga has a great history. It played a part in the bloody French and Indian War, passed from the French to the English, then to the Americans when Ethan Allen took it, then back to the English when Burgoyne took it, then finally back to the Americans again. And now the Boy Scouts propose to occupy it!
“We’ll explore the old Trout Brook where young Lord Howe was killed by the Indians. I believe I can pick out the very spot.”
“Then you do admit Ethan Allen took it?” smiled Harry.
“Well, in a way,” laughed the scoutmaster, “according to history, yes; according to reason and common sense, no.” Then, more seriously, he added, “There are some things in history, freakish things, which are theoretically impossible, but which are done. Paul Jones’s great battle is one. The storming of Stony Point by Mad Anthony Wayne is another.”
“Washington put him up to that,” protested Al Wilson.
“No, he didn’t, Al; Washington told him to go ahead if he wanted to, and Wayne, who was as crazy as a March hare, went ahead.”
“And succeeded,” finished Al.