ad learned of
the wish of his friend. He went immediately to General Washington, who
had just returned from a tour of the forts. The latter saw the look of
sorrow and anxiety in the face of his officer.

"How is the Colonel?" he asked.

"I think that he is near his end," Jack answered. "He has expressed a
wish to feel your hand again."

"Let us go to him at once," said the other. "There has been no greater
man in the army."

Together they went to the bedside of the faithful scout. The General
took his hand. Margaret put her lips close to Solomon's ear and said:

"General Washington has come to see you."

Solomon opened his eyes and smiled. Then there was a beauty not of
this world in his homely face. And that moment, holding the hand he
had loved and served and trusted, the heroic soul of Solomon Binkus
went out upon "the lonesome trail."

Jack, who had been kneeling at his side, kissed his white cheek.

"Oh, General, I knew and loved this man!" said the young officer as he
arose.

"It will be well for our people to know what men like him have endured
for them," said Washington.

"I shall have to learn how to live without him," said Jack. "It will
be hard."

Margaret took his arm and they went out of the door and stood a moment
looking off at the glowing sky above the western hills.

"Now you have me," she whispered.

He bent and kissed her.

"No man could have a better friend and fighting mate than you," he
answered.

3

"'We spend our years as a tale that is told,'" Jack wrote from
Philadelphia to his wife in Albany on the thirtieth of June, 1787:
"Dear Margaret, we thought that the story was ended when Washington
won. Five years have passed, as a watch in the night, and the most
impressive details are just now falling out. You recall our curiosity
about Henry Thornhill? When stopping at Kinderhook I learned that the
only man of that name who had lived there had been lying in his grave
these twenty years. He was one of the first dreamers about Liberty.
What think you of that? I, for one, can not believe that the man I saw
was an impostor. Was he an angel like those who visited the prophets?
Who shall say? Naturally, I think often of the look of him and of his
sudden disappearance in that Highland road. And, looking back at
Thornhill, this thought comes to me: Who can tell how many angels he
has met in the way of life all unaware of the high commission of his
visitor?

"On