1 66 WINTER SKETCHES. 



the guidance of Joshua Hett Smith, who fig- 

 ured conspicuously in the treason, and to 

 whose connection with it I shall give a prom- 

 inent place in this narrative, because his name 

 has not always been brought forward with 

 those of his principals. The river, frozen with 

 a thickness of nearly two feet, was still further 

 covered by a foot of snow. Far as the eye 

 could reach to the Highlands of the north, 

 and beyond the wide Tappaan Zee at the 

 South, it was all an unbroken prairie of white. 

 We might have crossed in the exact track 

 of Andr6 and Smith to Stony Point, a dis- 

 tance of about a mile, but by taking a diag- 

 onal course of four miles to Haverstraw there 

 was a saving of time. To all appearance 

 a great field lay before us. Why should 

 Fanny suppose it to be anything else ? She 

 had never been there before. Why should 

 she know that beneath that fair covering of 

 snow there was a layer of ice, and that beneath 

 the ice there was water enough to drown a 

 thousand regiments of cavalry ? There was 

 not the slightest difference in the look of the 

 snow upon the river and upon the land over 

 which we came to it. Nevertheless, she was 

 so reluctant to follow the foot-tracks that I 



