There was a great deal of hard work done after that, searching, climbing, and bush-cutting, and Ned wondered at the ready decisions made here and there, by the engineers. It seemed to him, too, that Captain Lee and other officers paid a great deal of deference to a young lieutenant by the name of McClellan. A small force of riflemen was with them and a party of sappers and miners, but there had not been a sign of military opposition to the work which they were trying to do. Nevertheless, it began to dawn upon Ned's mind that sometimes picks and spades and crowbars may be as important war weapons as even cannon. That is, there may be circumstances in which guns of any kind are of little use until after the other tools have been made to clear the way for them. Night came, and the entire reconnoitring party camped among the cliffs of Cerro Gordo, but at about the middle of the next forenoon all the officers gathered for a kind of council. They were not yet ready to send in a full and final report, but they had formed important conclusions, and at the end of the council Ned was called for. "Crawford," said Captain Lee, "take that despatch to Captain Schuyler Hamilton, or whoever else is on duty at General Scott's headquarters. In my opinion, this Zuroaga road will do, after we shall have made it, and we can climb around into the rear of the Mexican army. If so, all their batteries in the old road are but so many cannon thrown away." Ned's heart gave a great thump of pride as he took that carefully folded and sealed up paper. To carry it was a tremendous honor, and he was not half sure that it did not make him, for the time being, a regular member of General Scott's corps of military engineers. He hastened back to the Jalapa highway, and the first advanced post that he came to furnished him with a pony. Then he galloped on to the camps and to the general's headquarters, as if he had been undergoing no fatigue whatever. He seemed to himself, however, to have seen hardly anything or anybody until he stood before Captain Hamilton, and held out that vitally important despatch. Even then he did not quite understand that it was almost as important as had been the surrender of Vera Cruz. But for that surrender, the American expedition would have been stopped at the seashore. But for this feat of the engineers, it would have been disastrously halted at the foot of the Cerro Gordo pass. One minute later, Ned's heart jumped again, for he heard the deep voice of the general himself commanding: "Hamilton, bring Crawford in. He seems to know something."