“Poor’s guns, were they not?” asked Lana, striving to smile.  “And that means you march away and leave us with ’The World Turned Upside Down!’” And she shrugged her shoulders and whistled a bar of the old-time British air.

“Come to the parapet!” said Lois impatiently.  “For the last few minutes there has been a sound in the woods—­ very far away, Euan—­ yet, if one could hear so far I would swear that I heard the conch-horn of your rifles!”

“Did I not tell you she knew it well?” said Lana with her pallid smile, as we opened the massive guard-door, squeezed through the covered way, and came out along the rifle-platform among our noisy soldiers.

“Listen!” murmured Lois, close at my elbow.  “There!  It comes again!  Do you not hear it, Euan!  That low, long, sustained and heart-thrilling undertone droning in the air through all this tumult!”

And presently I heard the sound—­ the wondrous melancholy, yet seductive music of our conch-horn.  Its magic call set my every pulse a-throbbing.  All the alluring mystery and solitude, all the sorrow of the wilderness were in those long-drawn blasts; all the enchantment of the woodland, too, calling, calling to the sons of the forest, riflemen, hunter, Coureur-de-Bois.

For its elfin monotone was the very voice of the forest itself—­ the deep, sweet whisper of virgin wilds, sacred, impenetrable, undefiled, tempting forever the sons of men.

And now, across the misty river, there was a great tumult of shouting as the first Otsego batteaux came into view; louder boomed our jolly cohorn, leaping high in its sulphurous powder-cloud; and the artillery band at the landing began to play “Iunadilla,” which so deeply pleasured me that I forgot and caught Lois’s hands between my own and pressed them there while her shoulder trembled against mine, and her breath came faster as the music swung into “The Huron” with a barbaric clash of cymbals.

It was a wondrous spectacle to see the navy of our Right Wing coming on, the waves slapping on bow and quarter—­ two hundred and ten loaded batteaux in line falling grandly down with the smooth and sunlit current, three men to every boat.  Then, opposite, a wild flurry of bugle-horns announced our light infantry; and on they came, our merry General Hand riding ahead.  And we saw him dismount, fling his bridle to an orderly, and lifting his sword and belt above his head, wade straight into the ford.  And Asa Chapman and Justus Gaylord guided him.

After these came the light troops in their cocked hats, guided by Frederick Eveland; then a dun-coloured and dusty column emerged from the brilliant green of the woods, a mass of tossing fringes and ringed coon-tails and flashing rifle-barrels.

“The Rifles! hurrah for Morgan’s men!  Ha-i!  The Eleventh Virginia!” roared the soldiery all about us, while Lois tightened her arm around mine and almost crushed my fingers with her own.