Eight o'clock arrived, and still there had been no signal. All preparations had long since been made. The saddle-horses of the officers were ready under the shade, their girths properly tightened. Blankets had been rolled up and strapped, haversacks and bags properly repacked, a last look taken to flints and priming. The supply-wagon stood behind where the General's tent had been, all laden for the start, and with the horses harnessed to the pole. Still no signal came! The men began to grow uneasy with the waiting. It had been against the prevalent feeling of impatience that we halted here the preceding day, instead of hastening forward to strike the blow. Now every minute's inaction increased this spirit of restlessness. The militiamen's faces--already saturnine enough, what with broken rest and three days' stubble of beard--were clouding over with dislike for the delay. The sauntering to and fro began to assume a general trend toward the headquarters of the Brigadier. I had visited this spot once or twice before during the early morning to offer suggestions or receive commands. I went again now, having it in mind to report to the General the evident impatience of the men. A doubt was growing with me, too, whether we were not too far away to be sure of hearing the guns from the fort--quite six miles distant. The privacy of the commander was indifferently secured by the posting of sentries, who guarded a square perhaps forty feet each way. In the centre of this enclosure was a clump of high bushes, with one or two young trees, bunched upon the bank of a tiny rivulet now almost dried up. Here, during the night, the General's small army-tent had been pitched, and here now, after the tent had been packed on the wagon, he sat, on the only chair in camp, under the shadow of the bushes, within full view of his soldiers. These were by this time gathered three or four deep around the three front sides of the square, and were gradually pushing the sentries in. Five or six officers stood about the General, talking earnestly with him and with one another, and the growing crowd outside the square were visibly anxious to hear what was going on. I have said before, I think, that I was the only officer of the Continental line in the whole party. This fact, and some trifling differences between my uniform and that of the militia colonels and majors, had attracted notice, not wholly of an admiring sort. I had had the misfortune, moreover, to learn in camp before Quebec to shave every day, as regularly as if at home, with the result that I was probably the only man in the clearing that morning who wore a clean face. This served further to make me a marked man among such of the farmer boys as knew me only by sight. As I pushed my way through the throng to get inside the square, I heard various comments by strangers from Canajoharie or Cherry Valley way. "There goes Schuyler's Dutchman," said one. "He has brought his _friseur_ with him."