d men, with faces haggard, clothing in tatters, and
many barefooted and bareheaded. Over eighty had died in the
wilderness, and a hundred were on the sick list. So pitiful and so
ludicrous was their appearance that one man wrote in his diary that
they "resembled those animals of New Spain called {30}
orang-outangs," and "unlike the children of Israel, whose clothes
waxed not old in the wilderness, theirs hardly held together."

With his usual bravado, Arnold planned to capture the "Gibraltar of
America" at one stroke. He little knew that, a few days before, some
treacherous Indians had warned the British commander of his approach.

On the night of November 13, Arnold ferried five hundred of his men
across the St. Lawrence, and climbed to the Heights of Abraham, at
the very place where Wolfe had climbed to victory sixteen years
before. At daybreak the walls of the city were covered with soldiers
and with citizens. Within half a mile of the walls, which fairly
bristled with cannon, the ragged soldiers halted and began to cheer
lustily. The redcoats shouted back their defiance. Arnold wrote a
letter to the governor of Quebec, demanding the surrender of the
city. The bearer of the letter, although under a flag of truce, was
not even allowed to come near the walls.

After six days the little army slipped away one dark night, and
tramped to a village some twenty miles to the west of Quebec. Here
they hoped to join forces with Montgomery, who had already captured
Montreal, and then come back to renew the siege.

Ten days later, on December 1, Arnold paraded his troops in front of
the village church to greet Montgomery with his army. The united
forces, still less than a thousand men, now trudged their way back to
Quebec. On {31} arriving there, Montgomery boldly demanded the
surrender of the town.

Meanwhile, on November 19, Sir Guy Carleton had left Montreal, and,
having made his way down the river, in the disguise of a farmer,
slipped into Quebec. This was the salvation of Canada.

The British general was an able soldier. He at once took energetic
steps for the defense of the city. At every available point he built
blockhouses, barricades, and palisades; and mounted one hundred and
fifty cannon. He took five hundred sailors from the war vessels to
help man the guns, and thus increased the garrison to eighteen
hundred fighting men.

For two weeks the patriot army fired their little three-pounders, and
threw several hu