The able scout explored a long stretch of the lake's outlet which flowed toward the south. It had a considerable channel but not enough water for boats or canoes even. That night he began cutting timber for a dam at the end of the lake above its outlet. Near sundown, next day, the dam was finished and the water began rising. A rain hurried the process. Two days later the big water plane had begun to spill into its outlet and flood the near meadow flats. The party got the boats in place some twenty rods below and ready to be launched. Solomon drove the plug out of his dam and the pent-up water began to pour through. The stream was soon flooded and the boats floating. Thus with a spirited water horse to carry them they began their journey to the sea. Men stood in the bow and stern of each boat with poles to push it along and keep it off the banks. Some ten miles below they swung into a large river and went on, more swiftly, with the aid of oars and paddles. Thus Solomon became the hero of this ill-fated expedition. After that he was often referred to in the army as the River Maker, although the ingenious man was better known as the Lightning Hurler, that phrase having been coined in Jack's account of his adventures with Solomon in the great north bush. In the ranks he had been regarded with a kind of awe as a most redoubtable man of mysterious and uncanny gifts since he and Jack had arrived in the Highlands fresh from their adventure of "shifting the skeer"--as Solomon was wont to put it--whereupon, with no great delay, the rash Colonel Burley had his Binkussing. The scout was often urged to make a display of his terrible weapon but he held his tongue about it, nor would he play with the lightning or be induced to hurl it upon white men. "That's only fer to save a man from bein' burnt alive an' et up," he used to say. At the White Pine Mills near the sea they were taken aboard a lumber ship bound for Boston. Solomon returned with a great and growing influence among the common soldiers. He had spent a week in Newport and many of his comrades had reached the camp of Washington in advance of the scout's arrival. When Solomon--a worn and ragged veteran--gained the foot of the Highlands, late in October, he learned to his joy that Stony Point and King's Ferry had been abandoned by the British. He found Jack at Stony Point and told him the story of his wasted months. Then Jack gave his friend the news of the war. D'Estaing with a French fleet had arrived early in the month. This had led to the evacuation of Newport and Stony Point to strengthen the British position in New York. But South Carolina had been conquered by the British. It took seven hundred dollars to buy a pair of shoes with the money of that state, so that great difficulties had fallen in the way of arming and equipping a capable fighting force.