Another reason inclined him not to press Gates too far.  He had been able to order seventy-seven hundred troops from Fishkill, which was more than Washington had expected, although by no means so many as he needed.  He therefore wrote to the Chief at length, sent for Troup, and threw himself on the bed; he was well-nigh worn out.

Troup was already in search of him, and met the messenger.  Big and bronzed, bursting with spirits, he seemed to electrify the very air of the room he burst into without ceremony.  Hamilton sat up and poured out his troubles.

“You have an affinity for posts of danger,” said Troup.  “I believe you to be walking over a powder-mine here.  I am not in their confidence, for they know what I think of Washington, but I believe there is a cabal on foot, and that Gates may be in open rebellion any minute.  But he’s a coward and a bully.  Treat him as such.  Press your point and get your troops.  He is but the tool of a faction, and I doubt if they could make him act when it came to the point.  He wants to make another grand coup before striking.  Look well into what regiment he gives you.  Which are you to have?”

“General Patterson’s.”

“I thought as much.  It is the weakest of the three now here, consists of but about six hundred rank and file fit for duty.  There are two hundred militia with it, whose time of service is so near expiring that they will have dissolved ere you reach Headquarters.”

Hamilton had sprung to his feet in a fury.  He forgot his pains, and let his temper fly with satisfaction in the exercise.  “If that is the case,” he cried, when he had finished his anathema of Gates, “I’ll have the men;” and he dashed at his writing materials.  But he threw his pen aside in a moment.  “I’ll wait till to-morrow for this.  I must be master of myself.  Tell me of Saratoga.  You distinguished yourself mightily, and no one was more glad than I.”

Troup talked while Hamilton rested.  That evening he took him to call at the Schuyler mansion, high on the hill.

Philip Schuyler was the great feudal lord of the North.  He had served the colonial cause in many ways, and at the outbreak of the Revolution had been one of its hopes and props.  But brilliant as his exploits had been, the intrigues of Gates, after the fall of Ticonderoga, had been successful, and he was deprived of the army of the North before the battle of Saratoga.  The day of exoneration came, but at present he was living quietly at home, without bitterness.  A man of the most exalted character, he drew added strength from adversity, to be placed at the service of the country the moment it was demanded.  Mrs. Schuyler, herself a great-granddaughter of the first patroon, Killian Van Rensselaer, was a woman of strong character, an embodied type of all the virtues of the Dutch pioneer housewife.  She had a lively and turbulent family of daughters, however, and did not pretend to manage