Benedict Arnold was now thirty-five years old; educated in the common schools, apprenticed as a druggist, fond of mischief, cruel, irritable, reckless of his reputation, ambitious and uncontrollable. As a boy he loved to maim young birds, placed broken glass where school-children would cut their feet, and enticed them with presents and then rushed out and horsewhipped them. He would cling to the arms of a large water-wheel at the grist-mill and thus pass beneath and above the water. When sixteen years of age he enlisted as a soldier, was released; enlisted again, was at Ticonderoga and other frontier forts; deserted; served out his apprenticeship, became a druggist and general merchant in New Haven; shipped horses, cattle, and provisions to the West Indies, commanded his own vessels, fought a duel with a Frenchman in the West Indies, became a bankrupt, and was suspected of dishonesty. Fertile in resource, he resumed business with energy but with the same obliquity of moral purpose. With sixty volunteers, a few of them Yale students, marching from New Haven to Cambridge, he had an interview with Colonel Samuel H. Parsons near Hartford the 27th of April, and told him about the cannon and ammunition at Ticonderoga and the defenceless condition of that fort. Such was the man who endeavored to wrest the command of the expedition from Allen. But the grandest scene of all on that 3d of May is the assemblage in Bennington, perhaps in the old Catamount Tavern of Stephen Fay. Allen, Warner, Robinson, Dr. Jonas Fay, Joseph Fay, Breakenridge are there with fifteen Connecticut men and thirty-nine Massachusetts men. Easton's Massachusetts men outnumber Warner's recruits, and Warner ranks third instead of second. No one dreams of any one but Allen for the leader. Easton is also complimented by being made chairman of the council. Allen with his usual energy takes the initiative and leaves the party to raise more men. He has been gone but a short time when Benedict Arnold arrives on horseback with one attendant at the hamlet and camp of Castleton. He sees Nott and other officers. They frankly communicate to him all their plans, and are in turn astounded by Arnold's claiming the right to take command of their whole force. He shows them his commission from the Committee of Safety in Cambridge, Mass. This paper gave authority to enlist men, but no more power over these men than any other American volunteers. Arnold's temper brooked no opposition. There is almost a mutiny among the men. They would go home, abandon the whole expedition which had so enkindled their enthusiasm, rather than be subject to Arnold. Whether this was owing to his domineering temper as exhibited before them, to his reputation in Connecticut as an unprincipled man, or entirely to their regard for their own officers and aversion to others, we can only conjecture. Tuesday morning this wrangling is resumed. Again the soldiers threaten to club their guns and go home. When