"Can't we exchange him?" asked Hamilton, eagerly, "Do you think General Washington would listen to us?" "If we have a victory. I shouldn't care to approach him at present. God! This is an awful beginning. The whole army is ready to dig its own grave. The only person of the lot who has any heart in him to-day is little Burr. He's like to burst with importance because he leads and we follow. He's a brave little chap, but such a bantam one must laugh. Well, I hate to leave you here, the very last man to be made a target of. You won't be rash?" he added anxiously. "No, granny," said Hamilton, whose gaiety had revived as he heard of Troup's safety. "And I'd not exchange my position for any." "Good-by." Handshakes in those days were solemn. Fish feared that he never should see Hamilton again, and his fear was close to being realized. It was a long, hot, dusty, miserable march; some lay down by the wayside and died. Hamilton had been bred in the heat of the Tropics, but he had ridden always, and to-day he was obliged to trudge the thirteen miles on foot. He had managed to procure horses for his guns and caissons, but none for himself and his officers. It was on the Hoagland farm at the junction of the Kingsbridge and Bloomingdale roads that a serious skirmish occurred, and Hamilton and his men stood the brunt of it. The tired column was almost through the pass, when a detachment of British light infantry suddenly appeared on the right. Fortunately the cannon had not entered the pass, and were ready for action. Hamilton opened fire at once. There was a sharp engagement, but the British were finally driven off. Then the defenders of the column made good their own retreat, for they knew that by now the redcoats were swarming over the island. Toward night a cold wind and rain swept in from the ocean. When the little army finally reached Harlem Heights they were obliged to sleep on the wet ground without so much as a tent to cover them, then arise at dawn and dig trenches. But by night they were men again, they had ceased to be dogged machines: the battle of Harlem Heights had been fought and won. The British had begun the battle in the wrong place and at the wrong time, and all the natural advantages of that land of precipices, forests, gorges, wooded hills, and many ravines, were with the Americans. Again Hamilton worked in the thick of the fight during the four hours it lasted, but like everybody else he went to sleep happy. XVIII He rose at dawn the next morning, and rousing his men, set them at work throwing up redoubts. He was standing some distance from them, watching the sun rise over the great valley they had been forced to abandon, with its woods and beautiful homes, now the quarters of British officers, when every nerve in his body became intensely aware that some one was standing behind him. He knew that it was a man of power before he whirled round and saw Washington.