- fast, and took, each in turn, an hour's
sleep.
As we walked away, Gist said there was small fear of Indians either in the darkness or in great cold, for they liked neither, and he thought the cold had perhaps saved us from pursuit.
This was the case at Valley Forge in '78, when, although my soldiers suffered greatly, the snows and the cold were such as to keep Sir William Howe in his lines.
From the top of a hill, as I looked back on the river, Gist said: "You will never again, sir, be in a worse business than that, nor ever see the like again." But this I did, when, on the night before Christmas, in 1776, I crossed the Delaware in a boat with General Knox, amid as great peril of ice, on our way to beat up the Hessian quarters at Trenton.
While we were in danger, Gist had been silent; but now that we were released from anxiety and on a clear trail, he talked all the time, whether I made answer or not. I remember little of what he said, being engaged in thinking how soon I should be able to reach Williamsburg. I recall, however, his surprising me with a question as
