The General smiled somewhat grimly as he said: “Lieut. Morton, your treatment is no criterion of our hospitality to those whom the fortunes of war throw into our hands. You forget that you were made prisoner under most suspicious circumstances. You were found lying wounded beside the mutilated corpse of that influential citizen who, I may so express it, stepped from the political into the military arena, the late Major Slocum, and everything points to your having been associated with those who slew him and violated his remains. Apart from that grave circumstance, the mere fact of your being found on the territory of the United States government would justify my ordering your execution as a spy.” “Sir,” indignantly interrupted Morton, “I am no spy. My uniform shows I am an officer of the King’s army and I came upon American soil engaged in lawful warfare, declared not by King George but by your own government. I am a prisoner-of-war but no spy.” “It is undoubted that you consorted with Indians, that you were present with them in the childish attempt to surprise my army the other evening, and that you were with one or more redskins when Major Slocum offered up his life on the altar of his country in a manner that befitted so celebrated a patriot, who to his laurels as a statesman had added those of a soldier. You must understand, for you appear to be a man of parts and education, that Indians and those who associate with them are not recognized as entitled to the rights of war. They are shot or hung as barbarous murderers without trial.” “If that is your law, General, how comes it that you have Indians in your army?” The General looked nonplussed for a moment. “Our Indians,” he answered, “are not in the same category. They have embraced the allegiance of a free government; yours are wild wretches, refugees from our domain and fugitives from our justice, and now the minions of a bloody despotism.” “I do not see that if it is right for your government to avail themselves of the skill of Indians as scouts and guides that it can be wrong for His Majesty’s government to do the same. Between the painted savages I perceived in your camp and those in the King’s service, I could distinguish no difference.” “Keep your argument for the court martial which, tho’ I do not consider you entitled, I may grant. Leaving that aside, sir, and reminding you of your perilous position, I would demand whether you are disposed to make compensation, so far as in your power, to the government of the United States by giving information that would be useful in the present crisis? As an officer, you must know much of the strength and disposition of the British force who stand in my onward path to Montreal.”