d the news?"

"If you mean so far as concerns the committee from Connecticut, Isaac, I
have heard it, and what's more, Master Noah Phelps talked with me before
ever he went to see Colonel Easton. He knew where he could get
information about Ticonderoga, for bless your soul, lad, wasn't I there
in '58? An' would you find a stick or stone around the place that I
can't call to mind?"

"Did Master Phelps come to see you first?"

"Well, yes, lad, it 'mounted to much the same thing. I was down the road
when he come into town, an' seein' me he acted like as if a great load
had been lifted off his shoulders, 'cause he knowed I could tell him a
thing or two if I was minded. 'Good-evenin' to you, Corporal 'Lige,' he
said sweet as honey in the honeycomb, and I passed the time of day with
him, kind of suspicionin' something of this same business was goin' on.
'Want to take a little trip up through the country?' he asked
friendly-like, and do you know, lad, the whole plan come to me in a
minute, an' I says to him, says I, 'Master Phelps, you can count me in,
if it so be yo're goin' toward the lakes.' 'That's where we're bound
for, Corporal 'Lige,' says he, 'and I'll put your name down.' I said,
says I, 'It's rations, an' somethin' in the way of pay, I reckon?' an'
he allowed as that part of it would be all fixed, especially with me,
'cause you see, lad, it wouldn't be much good for these people what
never knew anything 'bout war, to start out leavin' me behind. Why,
bless your heart, I allow that's why they come through Pittsfield, jest
for the purpose of seein' Corporal 'Lige."

The old man ceased speaking to puff dense volumes of smoke from his
pipe, and Isaac Rice gazed at him in wonder and amaze.

That the committee from Connecticut had visited the town for the sole
and only reason of inducing the corporal to join the force, there was no
question in his mind, and now, more implicitly than ever before, did he
believe that throughout all the provinces there could be found no abler
soldier than Corporal 'Lige.

"Yes, lad, I'm goin' with the committee, more to tell 'em what they
ought to do, as you might say, than to serve as a private soldier, for
you see I know Ticonderoga root and branch. I could tell you the whole
story from the meanin' of the name down to who is in command of it this
very minute, if there was time."

"But there is, corporal. The committee are talkin' to Colonel Easton and
Master Brown now, and don't cou