For the mission to Quebec a strong, daring, even reckless character was needed, and such a one sprang up suddenly to notice in the American army. The name of this man was Benedict Arnold. It is a name which history has covered with infamy because of its owner's subsequent treason to the American cause. But nothing that he afterwards did can {240} obliterate the fact that Arnold was fearless, enterprising, and generous-minded, and the equal in origin and manners of most of the American military officers of that day. Arnold had been successively druggist, bookseller, horse-dealer, shipowner, and shipmaster, and at thirty-five years of age found himself burning with military zeal and anxious to distinguish himself. He proposed to lead the 1100 men he had raised, by way of river and wilderness, over the mountains of Maine to Quebec and capture that city by surprise. His little force was composed of the roughest elements: ten companies of musketeers and three of riflemen, the latter hailed from the hills of Virginia and Pennsylvania, hunters and Indian fighters, wise in woodcraft, handy with the rifle, the hunting-knife, and birch-bark canoe, accustomed to hunger, exposure, and fatigue. They were armed each with a good rifle, a tomahawk, a long knife, a small axe, and dressed in a hunting-shirt of deer-skin, with moccasins and leggings of the same material. By the middle of September 1775 Arnold and his daring band were well on their way through the wilderness. When not paddling their canoes, the ground across the carrying-places was rough, rocky, and rugged, interspersed with bogs, into which the invaders sank often to their knees. New difficulties faced them daily, and their provisions grew scant, until at length they resolved to eat their pork raw and to make but two meals each day. Never was expedition undertaken more recklessly. Unacquainted with the distance they had to go, they were without map or chart; half a biscuit, half a {241} square inch of raw pork formed their usual meal; but there were worse days to come, days when these invaders of Canada were called to kill the two faithful dogs which accompanied them, to make soup out of their old deer-skin moccasins, to devour roots and leaves greedily. But the thought of capturing Quebec fired every heart during the memorable six weeks' march. Thus it was that a camp at the French Canadian settlement was reached. Hearing of Arnold's arrival with his emaciated followers, the Indians of the country-side began flocking around, eager to know what had brought him hither. "Summon," said Arnold, "your braves in council, gather together your young men, and I will tell them why we are come."