“God bless her!” went on the Captain, his blue eyes deepening to a light, wholly tender, “She would scarce consent to my coming up here without her. She argued with me, the witch, that Mistress Washington had passed the winter at Valley Forge, and she did not love her General any more than my wife loved her Captain! It was a clinching argument, Morgan, my friend, and I had to promise that she should come when all was ready--and there she is waiting in Boston until I send for her.” Morgan tossed his head, and his tail waved slightly. “She shall ride you, little horse, for, by my sword, there never was a more delightful, under the saddle. My mind is made up, I shall buy you, old as you are!” There it was again--“As old as you are.” Age! what has age to do with it if the heart and spirit are young? “As for these Vermonters,” the Captain continued, thinking aloud, and riding on, “they are brave, fine men and they will stand by Ethan Allen’s ideals; if war comes they will be with us. I’ve felt the pulse of Vermont from North to South, and I believe in them in spite of their reserve and non-committal attitude.” They galloped on over rocky, new-cleared spaces, across streams and fences, and pushed their way slowly through underbrush. When they stopped, Dulaney pulled Morgan’s lean head round and caught his bright, pleasant eye. The Captain winked at him with a chuckle. “We’ll win this war yet----” So there was to be a war! Morgan’s pupils dilated, his nostrils spread. “Yes, we’ll win this war, as we did the other,” and the officer nodded his head with conviction. “I was but a lad of ten, Morgan, when we heard of Cornwallis’ surrender, in 1781. ’Twas a crisp autumn day and I well recall the shouting and hurrahing, the patriotic acclamations and glowing ardor of the Americans. “To-day we have no Washington, no Hamilton, no La Fayette. We can but wait and see. But to me it seems a foregone conclusion. We have the larger ships, the heavier ordnance, and we are superior in seamanship and gunnery. Our vessels are few, but equipped thoroughly. Right will prevail--and we are right, aren’t we, Morgan?” Having finished his somewhat whimsical remarks, he wheeled his horse once more, and galloped toward Rocky Point where he stopped long--taking further observations of lake and country, turning in his saddle and gazing with thoughtful brow in every direction, scanning the horizon line, the lake, the streams, the roads. Before the day was done they had skirted the rugged coast and crossed the sand-bar to La Grande Isle. So great was the number of salmon in those days that, as Morgan waded knee-deep in the water among them, they splashed away from his feet, as if in play. Squirrels ran over the ground on the island and chattered down at them from the boughs. Clear and deep the blue lake lay, the woods coming to the very edge where poplars trembled in the clear light and tall, straight white-pines towered like sentinels.