in Heaven's name were "Headquarters" doing in Philadelphia? Was his
Excellency there? Was the army there? Impossible--the army which for
months had been preparing to storm New York?--impossible!

I thrust my hand into the breast-pocket of my coat, drew out the sealed
orders, tore them open, and read:

"Until further notice such reports as you are required to render to
his Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, should be sent to
headquarters, near Yorktown, Virginia----"

Virginia! The army that I had seen at Dobbs Ferry, at White Plains, at
North Castle, was that army on its way to Virginia? What! hurl an
entire army a thousand miles southward? And had Sir Henry Clinton
permitted it?

In a sort of stupor I read and reread the astonishing words: "Virginia?
There was a British army in Virginia. Yorktown? Yes, that British army
was at Yorktown, practically at bay, with a youth of twenty-three--my
own age--harassing it--the young General Lafayette! Greene, too, was
there, his chivalry cutting up the light troops of General Lord
Cornwallis----"

"By Heaven!" I cried, springing to my feet, "his Excellency never meant
to storm New York! The French fleet has sailed for the Chesapeake!
Lafayette is there, Greene is there, Morgan, Sumter, Lee, Pickens, all
are there! His Excellency has gone to catch Cornwallis in a mouse-trap,
and Sir Henry is duped!"

Mad with excitement and delight, I looked up at the great fortress on
the river, and knew that it was safe in its magnificent isolation--safe
with its guns and ramparts and its four thousand men--knew that the key
to the Hudson was ours, and would remain ours, although the army, like
a gigantic dragon, had lifted its great wings and soared southward, so
silently that none, not even the British spies, had dreamed its
destination was other than the city of New York.

And, as I looked, the signals on the fortress changed; the guard-boats
hailed us, the harmless river-craft gave us right of way, and we spread
our white sails once more, drawing slowly northward, under the rocky
pulpits of the heights, past shore forests yet unbroken, edged with
acres of reeds and marshes, from which the water-fowl arose in clouds;
past pine-crowned capes and mountains, whose bases were bathed in the
great river; past lonely little islands, on, on, into the purple
mystery of the silent north.

Now there remained no high sky-bastion to halt us with voiceless signal
and dumb cannon, noth