At about ten o'clock that night, Monday, November 13th, the troops paraded noiselessly on the beach near a mill at Point Levi. Dick's heart exulted as he found himself still in the van when the riflemen, directed in the gloom by the low-spoken orders of Morgan, stepped into the canoes that awaited them at the edge of the dark river. Silently, at the word, each boat pushed off, the Indians dipped their paddles, and the men found themselves in the swift current. Dick looked over the shoulder of old Tom towards the distant frowning heights, and recalled the story of how Wolfe, traversing the same river towards those same heights, on that fateful night sixteen years before, to find death and immortal fame on the morrow, had recited some lines from Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and said he would rather be their author than take Quebec. Dick's emotion on realizing that he was where great history had been made, mingled presently with the one image that dominated his mind whenever his eyes or thoughts were on Quebec. But now and then an incident occurred to disturb his contemplations. The canoe behind him upset, and there was excitement, with loss of time, in rescuing its occupants, some of whom had to cross the river half submerged in the chill water, each holding to the stern of a canoe. Dick's boat, overcrowded, spilt a few of its passengers without entirely overturning, but no man was lost. The course lay between two of the enemy's war-vessels, a frigate and a sloop, yet the riflemen passed undiscovered. The transit seemed interminable, much to Dick's wonder, for from Point Levi the opposite shore had not appeared to be half as far as it was. At last the canoe glided along the shore of Wolfe's Cove, at the base of a steep ascent a mile and a half from the town, and Dick leaped ashore after Lieutenant Simpson, on the spot where the English general had landed on that September night in '59. The little landing-place was soon thronged with the dark figures of the men from the first boats, and Dick, ere he had taken time to look around, was stealthily scurrying up the slanting path, one of a party quickly sent in different directions by Morgan to reconnoitre the town's approaches. Clambering up the way by which Wolfe's army had ascended, he looked back and saw the dark river dotted in a long line with the boats of the crossing army. The continued silence testified either to the skill or good luck of his comrades, or to the blindness of the watches on the British vessels and on the guard-boats that patrolled the river. Reaching the top of the precipice and standing at last on the Plains of Abraham, Dick made sure that the head of the ascent was unguarded, and he thereupon, in obedience to his orders, descended back to the landing-place, and reported. More of the army had now arrived, and in an uninhabited house at the Cove a fire had been made, at which Dick went to warm himself and found old Tom.