While they trudged along, the strangers exhibited a singular interest in
the wheel Reilly pushed at his side, running their coarse hands over the
frame and handle-bar, and acting on the whole as though they never
before had seen a bicycle. This in itself was another surprise. He had
hardly supposed there were three men in the country so totally
unacquainted with what is a most familiar piece of mechanism everywhere. At the same time that they were paying so much attention to the wheel,
Reilly in turn was studying with great curiosity his singular-looking
captors. Rough, unprepossessing appearing fellows they were, large of
frame and unshaven, and, it must be added, dirty of face. What remained
of their very ragged clothing, he had already noticed, was of a most
remarkable cut and design, resembling closely the garments worn by the
Continental militiamen in the War of Independence. The hats were broad,
low of crown, and three-cornered in shape; the trousers were
buff-colored and ended at the knees, and the long, blue spike-tailed
coats were flapped over at the extremities of the tails, the flaps being
fastened down with good-sized brass buttons. Leather leggings were
strapped around cowhide boots, through the badly worn feet of which, in
places where the leather had cracked open, the flesh, unprotected by
stockings, could be seen. Dressed as he was, in a cleanly, gray cycling
costume, Reilly’s appearance, most assuredly, was strongly in contrast
to that of his companions. After a brisk walk of twenty minutes, during which they occasionally met
and passed by one or two or perhaps a group of men clothed and outfitted
like Reilly’s escorts, the little party followed the road up a slight
incline and around a well-wooded bend to the left, coming quite
suddenly, and to the captive, very unexpectedly, to what was without
doubt a military encampment; a village, in fact, composed of many rows
of small log huts. Along the streets, between the buildings, muskets
were stacked in hundreds of places. Over in one corner, on a slight
eminence commanding the road up which they had come, and cleverly hidden
from it behind trees and shrubbery, the young man noticed a battery of
field pieces. Wherever the eye was turned on this singular scene were
countless numbers of soldiers all garmented in three-cornered hats,
spike-tailed coats and knee breeches, walking lazily hither and thither,
grouped around crackling fires, or parading up and down the streets in
platoons under the guidance of ragged but stern-looking officers. Harry stopped the little procession of four in front of one of the
larger of the log houses. Then, while they stood there, the long blast
from a bugle was heard, followed by the roll of drums. A minute or two
afterward, several companies of militia marched up and grounded their
arms, forming three sides of a hollow square around them, the fourth
and open side being toward the log house. Directly succeeding this
maneuver there came through the doorway of the house and stepped up the
center of the square, stopping directly in front of Reilly, a
dignified-looking person, tall and straight and splendidly proportioned
of figure, and having a face of great nobility and character. The cold chills chased one another down Reilly’s back. His limbs swayed
and tottered beneath his weight. He had never experienced another such
sensation of mingled astonishment and fright. He was in the presence of General Washington. Not a phantom Washington,
either, but Washington in the flesh and blood; as material and earthly a
being as ever crossed a person’s line of vision. Reilly, in his time,
had seen so many portraits, marble busts and statues of the great
commander that he could not be mistaken. Recovering the use of his
faculties, which for the moment he seemed to have lost, Reilly did the
very commonplace thing that others before him have done when placed
unexpectedly in remarkable situations. He pinched himself to make sure
that he was in reality wide awake and in the natural possession of his
senses. He felt like pinching the figure in front of him also, but he
could not muster up the courage to do that. He stood there trying to
think it all out, and as his thoughts became less stagnant, his fright
dissolved under the process of reasoning his mind pursued. To reason a
thing out, even though an explanation can only be obtained by leaving
much of the subject unaccounted for, tends to make one bolder and less
shaky in the knees. The series of strange incidents which he was experiencing had been
inaugurated in the old-fashioned dwelling he had visited after
information concerning the roads. And everything had been going along in
a perfectly normal way up to, the very moment when he had taken a drink
from the bottle found in the fireplace. But from that precise time
everything had gone wrongly. Hence the inference that the drinking of
the peculiar liquid was accountable in some way or other for his
troubles. There was a supernatural agency in the whole thing. That much
must be admitted. And whatever that agency was, and however it might be
accounted for, it had taken Reilly back into a period of time more than
a hundred years ago, and landed him, body and soul, within the lines of
the patriot forces wintering at Valley Forge. He might have stood there,
turning over and over in his mind, pinching himself and muttering, all
the morning, had not the newcomer ceased a silent but curious inspection
of his person, and asked: “Who are you, sir?”

“John Reilly, at your pleasure,” the young man replied, adding a
question on his own account: “And who are you, sir?”

Immediately he received a heavy thump on his back from Harry’s hard
fist. “It is not for you to question the general,” the ragged administrator of
the blow exclaimed. “And it is not for you to be so gay,” Reilly returned, angrily, giving
the blow back with added force. “Here, here!” broke in the first questioner. “Fisticuffs under my very
nose! No more of this, I command you both.” To Harry he added an extra
caution: “Your zeal in my behalf will be better appreciated by being
less demonstrative. Blows should be struck only on the battlefield.” To
Reilly he said, with a slight smile hovering over his face, “My name is
Washington. Perhaps you may have heard of me?”

To this Reilly replied: “I have, indeed, and heard you very well spoken
of, too.” Emboldened by the other’s smile, he ventured another question:
“I think my reckoning of the day and year is badly at fault. An hour ago
I thought the day was Christmas day. How far out of the way did my
calculation take me, sir?”

“The day is indeed Christmas day, and the year is, as you must know, the
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven.”

Reilly again pinched himself. “Why do you bring this man to me?” Washington now inquired, turning to
Harry and his companions. “He is a spy, sir,” said Harry. “That is a lie!” Reilly indignantly interpolated.