I was still kneeling beside him, I know, when Enoch suddenly stood in front of me. His practised footsteps had made no sound. He glanced gravely at me and at the white, inanimate face of Cross. Emotions did not play lightly upon Enoch's leather-like visage; there was nothing in his look to tell whether he was surprised or not. "Well, what news? How has the day gone?" I asked him. "Your people hold the gulf. The British have gone back. It seems they were attacked in their rear from the fort. The woods are full of dead men." "What is Herkimer going to do?" "They were making a litter to carry him off the field. They are going home again--down the Valley." "So, then, we have lost the fight." "Well, seeing that every three sound men have got to tote back one wounded man, and that about half the people you brought here are dead to begin with, it don't look much like a victory, does it?" "But the British have retreated, you say, and there was a sortie from the fort?" "Yes, it's about six of one and half-dozen of t'other. I should say that both sides had got their bellyful of fighting. I guess they'll both want to rest for a spell." I made no answer, being lost in a maze of thoughts upon the hideous carnage of the day, and upon what was likely to come of it. Enoch went on: "They seemed to be pretty nigh through with their litter-making. They must be about ready to start. You'd better be spry if you want to go along with 'em." "Did you speak to any one of me? Did you tell them where I was?" "I ain't quite a fool, young man," said the trapper, with a gaunt sort of smile. "If they'd caught sight of me, I wouldn't have got much chance to explain about myself, let alone you. It kind of occurred to me that strangers found loafing around in the woods wouldn't get much of an opening for polite conversation just now--especially if those strangers were fellows who had come down from Sillinger's camp with letters only a fortnight ago." All this time Cross had been stretched at my knees, with his eyes closed. He opened them here, at Enoch's last words, and broke into our conversation with a weak, strangely altered voice: "I know you now--damn you! I couldn't think before. You are the fellow I gave my letters to, there on Buck's Island. I paid you your own price--in hard gold--and now you shoot me in return. You are on the right side now. You make a good rebel." "Now look here, Mr. Cross," put in Enoch, with just a trace of temper in his tone. "You paid me to carry those letters because I was going that way, and I carried 'em straight. You didn't pay me for anything else, and you couldn't, neither. There ain't been gold enough minted yet to hire me to fight for your King George against Congress. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!" "Come, Enoch," I here interrupted, "enough of that. The man is suffering. You must not vex him further by words."