Washington performed the long and toilsome journey through the forests at no slight risks, and delivered his message at the forts, but nothing came of it. The governor of Virginia, seeing the approaching danger, made the greatest efforts to induce the other colonies to join in common action; but North Carolina, alone, answered the appeal, and gave money enough to raise three or four hundred men. Two independent companies maintained by England in New York, and one in South Carolina, received orders to march to Virginia. The governor had raised, with great difficulty, three hundred men. They were called the Virginia Regiment. An English gentleman named Joshua Fry was appointed the colonel, and Washington their major.

Fry was at Alexandria, on the Potomac, with half the regiment. Washington, with the other half, had pushed forward to the storehouse at Wills Creek, which was to form the base of operations. Besides these, Captain Trent, with a band of backwoodsmen, had crossed the mountain to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh now stands.

Trent had gone back to Wills Creek, leaving Ensign Ward, with forty men, at work upon the fort, when, on the 17th of April, a swarm of canoes came down the Allegheny, with over five hundred Frenchmen, who planted cannon against the unfinished stockade, and summoned the ensign to surrender. He had no recourse but to submit, and was allowed to depart, with his men, across the mountains.

The French at once set to, to build a strong fort, which they named Fort Duquesne. While the governor of Virginia had been toiling, in vain, to get the colonists to move, the French had acted promptly, and the erection of their new fort at once covered their line of communication to the west, barred the advance of the English down the Ohio valley, and secured the allegiance of all the wavering Indian tribes.

Although war had not yet been declared between England and France, the colonists, after this seizure, by French soldiers, of a fort over which the English flag was flying, henceforth acted as if the two powers were at war. Washington moved forward from Wills Creek with his hundred and fifty men, and surprised a French force which had gone out scouting. Several of the French were killed, and the commander of Fort Duquesne sent despatches to France to say that he had sent this party out with a communication to Washington, and that they had been treacherously assassinated.

This obscure skirmish was the commencement of a war which set two continents on fire. Colonel Fry died a few days after this fight, and Washington succeeded to the command of the regiment, and collected his three hundred men at Green Meadow, where he was joined by a few Indians, and by a company from South Carolina.

The French at Duquesne were quickly reinforced, and the command was given to Coulon de Villiers, the brother of an officer who had been killed in the skirmish with Washington. He at once advanced against the English, who had fallen back to a rough breastwork which they called Fort Necessity, Washington having but four hundred men, against five hundred French and as many Indians.

For nine hours the French kept up a hot fire on the intrenchment, but without success, and at nightfall Villiers proposed a parley. The French ammunition was running short, the men were fatigued by their marches, and drenched by the rain which had been falling the whole day. The English were in a still worse plight. Their powder was nearly spent, their guns were foul, and among them they had but two cleaning rods.

After a parley, it was agreed that the English should march off with drums beating and the honours of war, carrying with them all their property; that the prisoners taken in the previous affair should be set free, two officers remaining with the French as hostages until they were handed over.

Washington and his men arrived, utterly worn out with fatigue and famine, at Wills Creek. This action left the French masters of the whole country beyond the Alleghenies.

The two mother nations were now preparing for war, and, in the middle of January, 1755, Major General Braddock, with the 44th and 48th Regiments, each five hundred strong, sailed from Cork for Virginia; while the French sent eighteen ships of war and six battalions to Canada.

Admiral Boscawen, with eleven ships of the line and one frigate, set out to intercept the French expedition. The greater part of the fleet evaded him, but he came up with three of the French men of war, opened fire upon them, and captured them. Up to this time a pretence of negotiations had been maintained between England and France, but the capture of the French ships brought the negotiations to a sudden end, and the war began.

A worse selection than that of Major General Braddock could hardly have been made. He was a brave officer and a good soldier, but he was rough, coarse, and obstinate. He utterly despised the colonial troops, and regarded all methods of fighting, save those pursued by regular armies in the field, with absolute contempt. To send such a man to command troops destined to fight in thick forests, against an enemy skilled in warfare of that kind, was to court defeat.

As might be expected, Braddock was very soon on the worst possible terms with the whole of the colonial authorities, and the delays caused by the indecision or obstinacy of the colonial assemblies chafed him to madness. At last, however, his force was assembled at Wills Creek. The two English regiments had been raised, by enlistment in Virginia, to 700 men each. There were nine Virginian companies of fifty men, and the thirty sailors lent by Commodore Keppel. General Braddock had three aides-de-camp—Captain Robert Orme, Captain Roger Morris, and Colonel George Washington.

It was the 1st of June, when James Walsham rode with Colonel Washington into the camp, and, three days later, the last companies of the Virginian corps marched in. During the next week, some of the English officers attempted to drill the Virginians in the manner of English troops.

"It is a waste of time," Colonel Washington said to James, one day, when he was watching them, "and worse. These men can fight their own way. Most of them are good shots, and have a fair idea of forest fighting; let them go their own way, and they can be trusted to hold their own against at least an equal number of French and Indians; but they would be hopelessly at sea if they were called upon to fight like English regulars. Most likely the enemy will attack us in the forest, and what good will forming in line, or wheeling on a flank, or any of the things which the general is trying to drum into their heads, do to them? If the French are foolish enough to wait at Fort Duquesne until we arrive, I have no doubt we shall beat them, but if they attack us in the woods it will go hard with us."

During the ten days which elapsed between his arrival and the start, James was kept hard at work, being for the most part employed galloping up and down the road, urging up the waggoners, and bringing back reports as to their position and progress. On the 10th of June the army started; 300 axemen led the way, cutting and clearing the road; the long train of pack horses, waggons, and cannon followed; the troops marched in the forest on either side, while men were thrown out on the flanks, and scouts ranged the woods to guard against surprise.

The road was cut but twelve feet wide, and the line of march often extended four miles. Thus, day by day they toiled on, crossing the Allegheny Mountains, range after range; now plunging down into a ravine, now ascending a ridge, but always in the deep shadow of the forest. A few of the enemy hovered round them, occasionally killing a straggler who fell behind.

On the 18th of June, the army reached a place called the Little Meadows. So weak were the horses, from want of forage, that the last marches had been but three miles a day, and, upon Washington's advice, Braddock determined to leave the heavy baggage here, with the sick men and a strong guard under Colonel Dunbar; while he advanced with 1200 men, besides officers and drivers.

But the progress was still no more than three miles a day, and it was not until the 7th of July that they arrived within eight miles of the French fort. Between them lay, however, an extremely difficult country with a narrow defile, and Braddock determined to ford the Monongahela, and then cross it again lower down.

The garrison of Fort Duquesne consisted of a few companies of regular troops, some hundreds of Canadians, and 800 Indian warriors. They were kept informed, by the scouts, of the progress of the English, and, when the latter approached the Monongahela, a party under Captain Beaujeu set out to meet them. His force consisted of 637 Indians, 100 French officers and soldiers, and 146 Canadians, in all about 900 men.

At one o'clock in the day, Braddock crossed the Monongahela for the second time. The troops had, all the day, been expecting the attack and had prepared for it. At the second ford the army marched in martial order, with music playing and flags flying. Once across the river they halted for a short time, and then again continued their advance.

Braddock made every disposition for preventing a surprise. Several guides, with six Virginian light horsemen, led the way. Then came the advanced column, consisting of 300 soldiers under Gage, and a large body of axemen, under Sir John Sinclair, with two cannon. The main body followed close behind. The artillery and waggons moved along the road, the troops marched through the woods on either hand, numerous flanking parties were thrown out a hundred yards or more right and left, and, in the space between them and the line of troops, the pack horses and cattle made their way, as they best could, among the trees.

Beaujeu had intended to place his men in ambuscade at the ford, but, owing to various delays caused by the Indians, he was still a mile away from the ford when the British crossed. He was marching forward when he came suddenly upon the little party of guides and Virginian light horsemen. These at once fell back. The Indians raised their war whoop, and, spreading right and left among the trees, opened a sharp fire upon the British.

Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired volley after volley, with great steadiness, at the invisible opponents. The greater part of the Canadians bolted at once, but the Indians kept up their fire from behind the shelter of the trees. Gage brought up his two cannon and opened fire, and the Indians, who had a horror of artillery, began also to fall back.

The English advanced in regular lines, cheering loudly. Beaujeu fell dead; but Captain Dumas, who succeeded him in command, advanced at the head of his small party of French soldiers, and opened a heavy fire.

The Indians, encouraged by the example, rallied and again came forward, and, while the French regulars and the few Canadians who had not fled held the ground in front of the column, the Indians swarmed through the forests along both flanks of the English, and from behind trees, bushes, and rocks opened a withering fire upon them. The troops, bewildered and amazed by the fire poured into them by an invisible foe, and by the wild war whoops of the Indians, ceased to advance, and, standing close together, poured fruitlessly volley after volley into the surrounding forest.

On hearing the firing, Braddock, leaving 400 men in the rear under Sir Peter Halket, to guard the baggage, advanced with the main body to support Gage; but, just as he came up, the soldiers, appalled by the fire which was mowing them down in scores, abandoned their cannon and fell back in confusion. This threw the advancing force into disorder, and the two regiments became mixed together, massed in several dense bodies within a small space of ground, facing some one way and some another, all alike exposed, without shelter, to the hail of bullets.

Men and officers were alike new to warfare like this. They had been taught to fight in line against solid masses of the enemy, and against an invisible foe like the present they were helpless. The Virginians alone were equal to the emergency. They at once adopted their familiar forest tactics, and, taking their post behind trees, began to fight the Indians in their own way.

Had Braddock been a man of judgment and temper, the fortunes of the day might yet have been retrieved, for the Virginians could have checked the Indians until the English troops were rallied and prepared to meet the difficulty; but, to Braddock, the idea of men fighting behind trees was at once cowardly and opposed to all military discipline, and he dashed forward on his horse, and with fierce oaths ordered the Virginians to form line. A body of them, however, under Captain Waggoner, made a dash for a huge fallen tree, far out towards the lurking places of the Indians, and, crouching behind it, opened fire upon them; but the regulars, seeing the smoke among the bushes, took them for the enemy and, firing, killed many and forced the rest to return.

A few of the soldiers tried to imitate the Indians, and fight behind the trees, but Braddock beat them back with the flat of his sword, and forced them to stand with the others, who were now huddled in a mass, forming a target for the enemy's bullets. Lieutenant Colonel Burton led 100 of them towards a knoll from which the puffs came thickest, but he fell wounded, and his men, on whom the enemy instantly concentrated their fire, fell back. The soldiers, powerless against the unseen foe, for afterwards some of the officers and men who escaped declared that, throughout the whole fight, they had not seen a single Indian, discharged their guns aimlessly among the trees.

They were half stupefied now with the terror and confusion of the scene, the rain of bullets, the wild yells which burst ceaselessly from their 600 savage foemen; while the horses, wild with terror and wounds, added to the confusion by dashing madly hither and thither. Braddock behaved with furious intrepidity. He dashed hither and thither, shouting and storming at the men, and striving to get them in order, and to lead them to attack the enemy. Four horses were, one after the other, shot under him. His officers behaved with equal courage and self devotion, and in vain attempted to lead on the men, sometimes advancing in parties towards the Indians, in hopes that the soldiers would follow them. Sir Peter Halket was killed, Horne and Morris, the two aides-de-camp, Sinclair the quartermaster general, Gates, Gage, and Gladwin were wounded. Of 86 officers, 63 were killed or disabled, while of non-commissioned officers and privates only 459 came off unharmed.

James Walsham had been riding by the side of Washington when the fight began, and followed him closely as he galloped among the troops, trying to rally and lead them forward. Washington's horse was pierced by a ball and, staggering, fell. James leaped from his horse and gave it to the colonel, and then, seeing that there was nothing for him to do, withdrew a short distance from the crowd of soldiers, and crouched down between the trunks of two great trees growing close to each other; one of which protected him, for the most part, from the fire of the Indians, and the other from the not less dangerous fire of the English. Presently, seeing a soldier fall at a short distance from him, he ran out and picked up his musket and cartridge box, and began to fire at the bushes where the puffs of smoke showed that men were in hiding.

After three hours' passive endurance of this terrible fire, Braddock, seeing that all was lost, commanded a retreat, and he and such officers as were left strove to draw off the soldiers in some semblance of order; but at this moment a bullet struck him, and, passing through his arm, penetrated his lungs, and he fell from his horse. He demanded to be left where he lay, but Captain Stewart of the Virginians, and one of his men, bore him between them to the rear.

The soldiers had now spent all their ammunition, and, no longer kept in their places by their general, broke away in a wild panic. Washington's second horse had now been shot, and as, trying to check the men, he passed the trees where James had taken up his position, the latter joined him.

In vain Washington and his other officers tried to rally the men at the ford. They dashed across it, wild with fear, leaving their wounded comrades, cannon, baggage, and military chest a prey to the Indians.

Fortunately, only about fifty of the Indians followed as far as the ford, the rest being occupied in killing the wounded and scalping the dead. Dumas, who had now but twenty Frenchmen left, fell back to the fort, and the remnants of Braddock's force continued the flight unmolested.



Chapter 10: The Fight At Lake George.

Fortunate was it, for the remnant of Braddock's force, that the Indians were too much occupied in gathering the abundant harvest of scalps, too anxious to return to the fort to exhibit these trophies of their bravery, to press on in pursuit; for, had they done so, few indeed of the panic-stricken fugitives would ever have lived to tell the tale. All night these continued their flight, expecting every moment to hear the dreaded war whoop burst out again in the woods round them.

Colonel Washington had been ordered, by the dying general, to press on on horseback to the camp of Dunbar, and to tell him to forward waggons, provisions, and ammunition; but the panic, which had seized the main force, had already been spread by flying teamsters to Dunbar's camp. Many soldiers and waggoners at once took flight, and the panic was heightened when the remnants of Braddock's force arrived. There was no reason to suppose that they were pursued, and even had they been so, their force was ample to repel any attack that could be made upon it; but probably their commander saw that, in their present state of utter demoralization, they could not be trusted to fight, and that the first Indian war whoop would start them again in flight. Still, it was clear that a retreat would leave the whole border open to the ravages of the Indians, and Colonel Dunbar was greatly blamed for the course he took.

A hundred waggons were burned, the cannon and shells burst, and the barrels of powder emptied into the stream, the stores of provisions scattered through the woods, and then the force began its retreat over the mountains to Fort Cumberland, sixty miles away. General Braddock died the day that the retreat began. His last words were:

"We shall know better how to deal with them next time."

The news of the disaster came like a thunderbolt upon the colonists. Success had been regarded as certain, and the news that some fourteen hundred English troops had been utterly routed, by a body of French and Indians of half their strength, seemed almost incredible. The only consolation was that the hundred and fifty Virginians, who had accompanied the regulars, had all, as was acknowledged by the English officers themselves, fought with the greatest bravery, and had kept their coolness and presence of mind till the last, and that on them no shadow of the discredit of the affair rested. Indeed, it was said that the greater part were killed not by the fire of the Indians, but by that of the troops, who, standing in masses, fired in all directions, regardless of what was in front of them.

But Colonel Dunbar, not satisfied with retreating to the safe shelter of Fort Cumberland, to the amazement of the colonists, insisted upon withdrawing with his own force to Philadelphia, leaving the whole of the frontier open to the assaults of the hostile Indians. After waiting a short time at Philadelphia, he marched slowly on to join a force operating against the French in the region of Lake George, more than two hundred miles to the north. He took with him only the regulars, the provincial regiments being under the control of the governors of their own states.

Washington therefore remained behind in Virginia with the regiment of that colony. The blanks made in Braddock's fight were filled up, and the force raised to a thousand strong. With these he was to protect a frontier of three hundred and fifty miles long, against an active and enterprising foe more numerous than himself, and who, acting on the other side of the mountain, and in the shade of the deep forests, could choose their own time of attack, and launch themselves suddenly upon any village throughout the whole length of the frontier.

Nor were the troops at his disposal the material which a commander would wish to have in his hand. Individually they were brave, but being recruited among the poor whites, the most turbulent and troublesome part of the population, they were wholly unamenable to discipline, and Washington had no means whatever for enforcing it. He applied to the House of Assembly to pass a law enabling him to punish disobedience, but for months they hesitated to pass any such ordinance, on the excuse that it would trench on the liberty of free white men.

The service, indeed, was most unpopular, and Washington, whose headquarters were at Winchester, could do nothing whatever to assist the settlements on the border. His officers were as unruly as the men, and he was further hampered by having to comply with the orders of Governor Dinwiddie, at Williamsburg, two hundred miles away.

"What do you mean to do?" he had asked James Walsham, the day that the beaten army arrived at Fort Cumberland.

"I do not know," James said. "I certainly will not continue with Dunbar, who seems to me to be acting like a coward; nor do I wish to go into action with regulars again; not, at least, until they have been taught that, if they are to fight Indians successfully in the forests, they must abandon all their traditions of drill, and must fight in Indian fashion. I should like to stay with you, if you will allow me."

"I should be very glad to have you with me," Washington said; "but I do not think that you will see much action here. It will be a war of forays. The Indians will pounce upon a village or solitary farm house, murder and scalp the inhabitants, burn the buildings to the ground, and in an hour be far away beyond reach of pursuit. All that I can do is to occupy the chief roads, by which they can advance into the heart of the colony, and the people of the settlements lying west of that must, perforce, abandon their homesteads, and fly east until we are strong enough to again take up the offensive.

"Were I in your place, I would at once take horse and ride north. You will then be in plenty of time, if inclined, to join in the expedition against the French on Fort George, or in that which is going to march on Niagara. I fancy the former will be ready first. You will find things better managed there than here. The colonists in that part have, for many years, been accustomed to Indian fighting, and they will not be hampered by having regular troops with them, whose officers' only idea of warfare is to keep their men standing in line as targets for the enemy.

"There are many bodies of experienced scouts, to which you can attach yourself, and you will see that white men can beat the Indians at their own game."

Although sorry to leave the young Virginian officer, James Walsham thought that he could not do better than follow his advice, and accordingly, the next day, having procured another horse, he set off to join the column destined to operate on the lakes.

The prevision of Washington was shortly realized, and a cloud of red warriors descended on the border settlements, carrying murder, rapine, and ruin before them. Scores of quiet settlements were destroyed, hundreds of men, women, and children massacred, and in a short time the whole of the outlying farms were deserted, and crowds of weeping fugitives flocked eastward behind the line held by Washington's regiment.

But bad as affairs were in Virginia, those in Pennsylvania were infinitely worse. They had, for many years, been on such friendly terms with the Indians, that many of the settlers had no arms, nor had they the protection in the way of troops which the government of Virginia put upon the frontier. The government of the colony was at Philadelphia, far to the east, and sheltered from danger, and the Quaker assembly there refused to vote money for a single soldier to protect the unhappy colonists on the frontier. They held it a sin to fight, and above all to fight with Indians, and as long as they themselves were free from the danger, they turned a deaf ear to the tales of massacre, and to the pitiful cries for aid which came from the frontier. But even greater than their objection to war, was their passion of resistance to the representative of royalty, the governor.

Petition after petition came from the border for arms and ammunition, and for a militia law to enable the people to organize and defend themselves; but the Quakers resisted, declaring that Braddock's defeat was a just judgment upon him and his soldiers for molesting the French in their settlement in Ohio. They passed, indeed, a bill for raising fifty thousand pounds for the king's use, but affixed to it a condition, to which they knew well the governor could not assent; viz, that the proprietary lands were to pay their share of the tax.

To this condition the governor was unable to assent, for, according to the constitution of the colony, to which he was bound, the lands of William Penn and his descendants were free of all taxation. For weeks the deadlock continued. Every day brought news of massacres of tens, fifties, and even hundreds of persons, but the assembly remained obstinate; until the mayor, aldermen, and principal citizens clamoured against them, and four thousand frontiersmen started on their march to Philadelphia, to compel them to take measures for defence.

Bodies of massacred men were brought from the frontier villages and paraded through the town, and so threatening became the aspect of the population, that the Assembly of Quakers were at last obliged to pass a militia law. It was, however, an absolutely useless one. It specially excepted the Quakers from service, and constrained nobody, but declared it lawful for such as chose to form themselves into companies, and to elect officers by ballot. The company officers might, if they saw fit, elect, also by ballot, colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors. These last might then, in conjunction with the governor, frame articles of war, to which, however, no officer or man was to be subjected, unless, after three days' consideration, he subscribed them in presence of a justice of the peace, and declared his willingness to be bound by them.

This mockery of a bill, drawn by Benjamin Franklin while the savages were raging in the colony and the smoke of a hundred villages was ascending to the skies, was received with indignation by the people, and this rose to such a height that the Assembly must have yielded unconditionally, had not a circumstance occurred which gave them a decent pretext for retreat.

The governor informed them that he had just received a letter from the proprietors, as Penn's heirs were called, giving to the province five thousand pounds to aid in its defence, on condition that the money should be accepted as a free gift, and not as their proportion of any tax that was or might be laid by the Assembly.

Thereupon, the Assembly struck out the clause taxing the proprietory estates, and the governor signed the bill. A small force was then raised, which enabled the Indians to be to some extent kept in check; but there was no safety for the unhappy settlers in the west of Pennsylvania during the next three years, while the French from Montreal were hounding on their savage allies, by gifts and rewards, to deeds of massacre and bloodshed.

The northern colonies had shown a better spirit. Massachusetts, which had always been the foremost of the northern colonies in resisting French and Indian aggression, had at once taken the lead in preparation for war. No less than 4500 men, being one in eight of her adult males, volunteered to fight the French, and enlisted for the various expeditions, some in the pay of the province, some in that of the king. Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, himself a colonist, was requested by his Assembly to nominate the commander. He did not choose an officer of that province, as this would have excited the jealousy of the others, but nominated William Johnson of New York—a choice which not only pleased that important province, but had great influence in securing the alliance of the Indians of the Five Nations, among whom Johnson, who had held the post of Indian commissioner, was extremely popular.

Connecticut voted 1200 men, New Hampshire 500, Rhode Island 400, and New York 800, all at their own charge. Johnson, before assuming the command, invited the warriors of the Five Nations to assemble in council. Eleven hundred Indian warriors answered the invitation, and after four days' speech making agreed to join. Only 300 of them, however, took the field, for so many of their friends and relatives were fighting for the French, that the rest, when they sobered down after the excitement of the council, returned to their homes.

The object of the expedition was the attack of Crown Point—an important military post on Lake Champlain—and the colonists assembled near Albany; but there were great delays. The five colonial assemblies controlled their own troops and supplies. Connecticut had refused to send her men until Shirley promised that her commanding officer should rank next to Johnson, and the whole movement was for some time at a deadlock, because the five governments could not agree about their contributions of artillery and stores.

The troops were a rough-looking body. Only one of the corps had a blue uniform, faced with red. The rest wore their ordinary farm clothing. All had brought their own guns, of every description and fashion. They had no bayonets, but carried hatchets in their belts as a sort of substitute.

In point of morals the army, composed almost entirely of farmers and farmers' sons, was exemplary. It is recorded that not a chicken was stolen. In the camps of the Puritan soldiers of New England, sermons were preached twice a week, and there were daily prayers and much singing of psalms; but these good people were much shocked by the profane language of the troops from New York and Rhode Island, and some prophesied that disaster would be sure to fall upon the army from this cause.

Months were consumed in various delays; and, on the 21st of August, just as they were moving forward, four Mohawks, whom Johnson had sent into Canada, returned with the news that the French were making great preparations, and that 8000 men were marching to defend Crown Point. The papers of General Braddock, which fell, with all the baggage of the army, into the hands of the French, had informed them of the object of the gathering at Albany, and now that they had no fear of any further attempt against their posts in Ohio, they were able to concentrate all their force for the defence of their posts on Lake Champlain.

On the receipt of this alarming news, a council of war was held at Albany, and messages were sent to the colonies asking for reinforcements. In the meantime, the army moved up the Hudson to the spot called the Great Carrying Place, where Colonel Lyman, who was second in command, had gone forward and erected a fort, which his men called after him, but was afterwards named Fort Edward.

James Walsham joined the army a few days before it moved forward. He was received with great heartiness by General Johnson, to whom he brought a letter of introduction from Colonel Washington, and who at once offered him a position as one of his aides-de-camp. This he found exceedingly pleasant, for Johnson was one of the most jovial and open hearted of commanders. His hospitality was profuse, and, his private means being large, he was able to keep a capital table, which, on the line of march, all officers who happened to pass by were invited to share. This was a contrast, indeed, to the discipline which had prevailed in Braddock's columns, and James felt as if he were starting upon a great picnic, rather than upon an arduous march against a superior force.

After some hesitation as to the course the army should take, it was resolved to march for Lake George. Gangs of axemen were sent to hew a way, and, on the 26th, 2000 men marched for the lake, while Colonel Blanchard, of New Hampshire, remained with 500 to finish and defend Fort Lyman. The march was made in a leisurely manner, and the force took two days to traverse the fourteen miles between Fort Lyman and the lake. They were now in a country hitherto untrodden by white men save by solitary hunters.

They reached the southern end of the beautiful lake, which hitherto had received no English name, and was now first called Lake George in honour of the king. The men set to work, and felled trees until they had cleared a sufficient extent of ground for their camp, by the edge of the water, and posted themselves with their back to the lake. In their front was a forest of pitch pine, on their right a marsh covered with thick brush wood, on their left a low hill. Things went on in the same leisurely way which had marked the progress of the expedition.

No attempt was made to clear away the forest in front, although it would afford excellent cover for any enemy who might attack them, nor were any efforts made to discover the whereabouts or intention of the enemy. Every day waggons came up with provisions and boats.

On September 7th, an Indian scout arrived about sunset, and reported that he had found the trail of a body of men moving from South Bay, the southern extremity of Lake Champlain, towards Fort Lyman. Johnson called for a volunteer to carry a letter of warning to Colonel Blanchard. A waggoner named Adams offered to undertake the perilous service, and rode off with the letter. Sentries were posted, and the camp fell asleep.

While Johnson had been taking his leisure on Lake George, the commander of the French force, a German baron named Dieskau, was preparing a surprise for him. He had reached Crown Point at the head of 3573 men—regulars, Canadians, and Indians—and he at once moved forward, with the greater portion of his command, on Cariolon, or, as it was afterwards called, Ticonderoga, a promontory at the junction of Lake George with Lake Champlain, where he would bar the advance of the English, whichever road they might take.

The Indians with the French caused great trouble to their commander, doing nothing but feast and sleep, but, on September 4th, a party of them came in bringing a scalp and an English prisoner, caught near Fort Lyman.

He was questioned, under the threat of being given over to the Indians to torture, if he did not tell the truth, but the brave fellow, thinking he should lead the enemy into a trap, told them that the English army had fallen back to Albany, leaving 500 men at Fort Lyman, which he represented as being entirely indefensible.

Dieskau at once determined to attack that place, and, with 216 regulars of the battalions of Languedoc and La Reine, 684 Canadians, and about 600 Indians, started in canoes and advanced up Lake Champlain, till they came to the end of South Bay. Each officer and man carried provisions for eight days in his knapsack.

Two days' march brought them to within three miles of Fort Lyman, and they encamped close to the road which led to Lake George. Just after they had encamped, a man rode by on horseback. It was Adams, Johnson's messenger. He was shot by the Indians, and the letter found upon him. Soon afterwards, ten or twelve waggons appeared, in charge of ammunition drivers who had left the English camp without orders.

Some of the drivers were shot, two taken prisoners, and the rest ran away. The two prisoners declared that, contrary to the assertion of the prisoner at Ticonderoga, a large force lay encamped by the lake. The Indians held a council, and presently informed Dieskau that they would not attack the fort, which they believed to be provided with cannon, but would join in an attempt on the camp by the lake. Dieskau judged, from the report of the prisoners, that the colonists considerably outnumbered him, although in fact there was no great difference in numerical strength, the French column numbering 1500 and the colonial force 2200, besides 300 Mohawk Indians. But Dieskau, emulous of repeating the defeat of Braddock, and believing the assertions of the Canadians that the colonial militia was contemptible, determined to attack, and early in the morning the column moved along the road towards the lake.

When within four miles of Johnson's camp, they entered a rugged valley. On their right was a gorge, hidden in bushes, beyond which rose the rocky height of French Mountain. On their left rose gradually the slopes of West Mountain. The ground was thickly covered with thicket and forest. The regulars marched along the road, the Canadians and Indians pushed their way through the woods as best they could. When within three miles of the lake, their scout brought in a prisoner, who told them that an English column was approaching. The regulars were halted on the road, the Canadians and Indians moved on ahead, and hid themselves in ambush among the trees and bushes on either side of the road.

The waggoners, who had escaped the evening before, had reached Johnson's camp about midnight, and reported that there was a war party on the road near Fort Lyman. A council of war was held, and under an entire misconception of the force of the enemy, and the belief that they would speedily fall back from Fort Lyman, it was determined to send out two detachments, each 500 strong, one towards Fort Lyman, the other to catch the enemy in their retreat. Hendrick, the chief of the Mohawks, expressed his strong disapproval of this plan, and accordingly it was resolved that the thousand men should go as one body. Hendrick still disapproved of the plan, but nevertheless resolved to accompany the column, and, mounting on a gun carriage, he harangued his warriors with passionate eloquence, and they at once prepared to accompany them. He was too old and fat to go on foot, and the general lent him a horse, which he mounted, and took his place at the head of the column.

Colonel Williams was in command, with Lieutenant Colonel Whiting as second. They had no idea of meeting the enemy near the camp, and moved forward so carelessly that not a single scout was thrown out in front or flank. The sharp eye of the old Indian chief was the first to detect a sign of the enemy, and, almost at the same moment, a gun was fired from the bushes. It is said that the Iroquois, seeing the Mohawks, who were an allied tribe, in the van, wished to warn them of danger. The warning came too late to save the column from disaster, but it saved it from destruction. From the thicket on the left a deadly fire blazed out, and the head of the column was almost swept away. Hendrick's horse was shot, and the chief killed with a bayonet as he tried to gain his feet.

Colonel Williams, seeing rising ground on his right, made for it, calling his men to follow; but, as he climbed the slope, the enemy's fire flashed out from behind every tree, and he fell dead. The men in the rear pressed forward to support their comrades, when the enemy in the bushes on the right flank also opened fire.

Then a panic began. Some fled at once for the camp, and the whole column recoiled in confusion, as from all sides the enemy burst out, shouting and yelling. Colonel Whiting, however, bravely rallied a portion of Williams' regiment, and, aided by some of the Mohawks, and by a detachment which Johnson sent out to his aid, covered the retreat, fighting behind the trees like the Indians, and falling back in good order with their faces to the enemy.

So stern and obstinate was their resistance that the French halted three-quarters of a mile from the camp. They had inflicted a heavy blow, but had altogether failed in obtaining the complete success they looked for. The obstinate defence of Whiting and his men had surprised and dispirited them, and Dieskau, when he collected his men, found the Indians sullen and unmanageable, and the Canadians unwilling to advance further, for they were greatly depressed by the loss of a veteran officer, Saint Pierre, who commanded them, and who had been killed in the fight. At length, however, he persuaded all to move forward, the regulars leading the way.

James Walsham had not accompanied the column, and was sitting at breakfast with General Johnson, on the stump of a tree in front of his tent, when, on the still air, a rattling sound broke out.

"Musketry!" was the general exclamation.

An instantaneous change came over the camp. The sound of laughing and talking was hushed, and every man stopped at his work. Louder and louder swelled the distant sound, until the shots could no longer be distinguished apart. The rattle had become a steady roll.

"It is a regular engagement!" the general exclaimed. "The enemy must be in force, and must have attacked Williams' column."

General Johnson ordered one of his orderlies to mount and ride out at full speed and see what was going on. A quarter of an hour passed. No one returned to his work. The men stood in groups, talking in low voices, and listening to the distant roar.

"It is clearer than it was," the general exclaimed.

Several of the officers standing round agreed that the sound was approaching.

"To work, lads!" the general said. "There is no time to be lost. Let all the axemen fell trees and lay them end to end to make a breastwork. The rest of you range the waggons in a line behind, and lay the boats up in the intervals. Carry the line from the swamp, on the right there, to the slope of the hill."

In an instant, the camp was a scene of animation, and the forest resounded with the strokes of the axe, and the shouts of the men as they dragged the waggons to their position.

"I was a fool," Johnson exclaimed, "not to fortify the camp before; but who could have supposed that the French would have come down from Crown Point to attack us here!"

In a few minutes terror-stricken men, whites and Indians, arrived at a run through the forest, and reported that they had been attacked and surprised by a great force in the forest, that Hendrick and Colonel Williams were killed, and numbers of the men shot down. They reported that all was lost; but the heavy roll of fire, in the distance, contradicted their words; and showed that a portion of the column, at least, was fighting sternly and steadily, though the sound indicated that they were falling back.

Two hundred men had already been despatched to their assistance, and the only effect of the news was to redouble the efforts of the rest. Soon parties arrived carrying wounded; but it was not until an hour and a half after the engagement began, that the main body of the column were seen marching, in good order, back through the forest.

By this time the hasty defences were well-nigh completed, and all the men were employed in cutting down the thick brushwood outside, so as to clear the ground as far as possible, and so prevent the enemy from stealing up, under shelter, to the felled trees.

Three cannon were planted, to sweep the road that descended through the pines. Another was dragged up to the ridge of the hill. Two hundred and fifty men were now placed on each flank of the camp, the main body stood behind the waggons or lay flat behind the logs and boats, the Massachusetts men on the right, the Connecticut men on the left.

"Now, my lads," Johnson shouted, in his cheery voice, "you have got to fight. Remember, if they get inside not one of you will ever go back to your families to tell the tale, while if you fight bravely you will beat them back sure enough."

In a few minutes, ranks of white-coated soldiers could be seen moving down the roads, with their bayonets showing between the boughs. At the same time, Indian war whoops rose loud in the forest, and then dark forms could be seen, bounding down the slope through the trees towards the camp in a throng.

There was a movement of uneasiness among the young rustics, few of whom ever heard a shot fired in anger before that morning; but the officers, standing pistol in hand, threatened to shoot any man who moved from his position.

Could Dieskau have launched his whole force at once upon the camp at that moment, he would probably have carried it, but this he was powerless to do. His regular troops were well in hand; but the mob of Canadians and Indians were scattered through the forest, shouting, yelling, and firing from behind trees.

He thought, however, that if he led the regulars to the attack, the others would come forward, and he therefore gave the word for the advance. The French soldiers advanced steadily, until the trees grew thinner. They were deployed into line, and opened fire in regular volleys. Scarcely had they done so, however, when Captain Eyre, who commanded the artillery, opened upon them with grape from his three guns, while from waggon, and boat, and fallen log, the musketry fire flashed out hot and bitter, and, reeling under the shower of iron and lead, the French line broke up, the soldiers took shelter behind trees, and thence returned the fire of the defenders.

Johnson received a flesh wound in the thigh, and retired to his tent, where he spent the rest of the day. Lyman took the command, and to him the credit of the victory is entirely due.

For four hours the combat raged. The young soldiers had soon got over their first uneasiness, and fought as steadily and coolly as veterans. The musketry fire was unbroken. From every tree, bush, and rock the rifles flashed out, and the leaden hail flew in a storm over the camp, and cut the leaves in a shower from the forest. Through this Lyman moved to and fro among the men, directing, encouraging, cheering them on, escaping as by a miracle the balls which whistled round him. Save the Indians on the English side, not a man but was engaged, the waggoners taking their guns and joining in the fight.

The Mohawks, however, held aloof, saying that they had come to see their English brothers fight, but, animated no doubt with the idea that, if they abstained from taking part in the fray, and the day went against the English, their friends the Iroquois would not harm them.

The French Indians worked round on to high ground, beyond the swamp on the left, and their fire thence took the defenders in the flank. Captain Eyre speedily turned his guns in that direction, and a few well-directed shells soon drove the Indians from their vantage ground. Dieskau directed his first attack against the left and centre; but the Connecticut men fought so stoutly, that he next tried to force the right, where the Massachusetts regiments of Titcomb, Ruggles, and Williams held the line. For an hour he strove hard to break his way through the intrenchments, but the Massachusetts men stood firm, although Titcomb was killed and their loss was heavy.

At length Dieskau, exposing himself within short range of the English lines, was hit in the leg. While his adjutant Montreuil was dressing the wound, the general was again hit in the knee and thigh. He had himself placed behind a tree, and ordered Montreuil to lead the regulars in a last effort against the camp.

But it was too late. The blood of the colonists was now up, and, singly or in small bodies, they were crossing their lines of barricade, and working up among the trees towards their assailants. The movement became general, and Lyman, seeing the spirit of his men, gave the word, and the whole of the troops, with a shout, leaped up and dashed through the wood against the enemy, falling upon them with their hatchets and the butts of their guns.

The French and their allies instantly fled. As the colonists passed the spot where Dieskau was sitting on the ground, one of them, singularly enough himself a Frenchman, who had ten years before left Canada, fired at him and shot him through both legs. Others came up and stripped him of his clothes, but, on learning who he was, they carried him to Johnson, who received him with the greatest kindness, and had every attention paid to him.



Chapter 11: Scouting.

It was near five o'clock before the final rout of the French took place; but, before that time, several hundreds of the Canadians and Indians had left the scene of action, and had returned to the scene of the fight in the wood, to plunder and scalp the dead. They were resting, after their bloody work, by a pool in the forest, when a scouting party from Fort Lyman, under Captains M'Ginnis and Folsom, came upon them and opened fire.

The Canadians and Indians, outnumbering their assailants greatly, fought for some time, but were finally defeated and fled. M'Ginnis was mortally wounded, but continued to give orders till the fight was over. The bodies of the slain were thrown into the pool, which to this day bears the name, "the bloody pool."

The various bands of French fugitives reunited in the forest, and made their way back to their canoes in South Bay, and reached Ticonderoga utterly exhausted and famished, for they had thrown away their knapsacks in their flight, and had nothing to eat from the morning of the fight until they rejoined their comrades.

Johnson had the greatest difficulty in protecting the wounded French general from the Mohawks, who, although they had done no fighting in defence of the camp, wanted to torture and burn Dieskau in revenge for the death of Hendrick and their warriors who had fallen in the ambush. He, however, succeeded in doing so, and sent him in a litter under a strong escort to Albany. Dieskau was afterwards taken to England, and remained for some years at Bath, after which he returned to Paris. He never, however, recovered from his numerous wounds, and died a few years later.

He always spoke in the highest terms of the kindness he had received from the colonial officers. Of the provincial soldiers he said that, in the morning they fought like boys, about noon like men, and in the afternoon like devils.

The English loss in killed, wounded, and missing was two hundred and sixty-two, for the most part killed in the ambush in the morning. The French, according to their own account, lost two hundred and twenty-eight, but it probably exceeded four hundred, the principal portion of whom were regulars, for the Indians and Canadians kept themselves so well under cover that they and the provincials, behind their logs, were able to inflict but little loss on each other.

Had Johnson followed up his success, he might have reached South Bay before the French, in which case the whole of Dieskau's column must have fallen into his hands; nor did he press forward against Ticonderoga, which he might easily have captured. For ten days nothing was done except to fortify the camp, and when, at the end of that time, he thought of advancing against Ticonderoga, the French had already fortified the place so strongly that they were able to defy attack. The colonists sent him large reinforcements, but the season was getting late, and, after keeping the army stationary until the end of November, the troops, having suffered terribly from the cold and exposure, became almost mutinous, and were finally marched back to Albany, a small detachment being left to hold the fort by the lake. This was now christened Fort William Henry.

The victory was due principally to the gallantry and coolness of Lyman; but Johnson, in his report of the battle, made no mention of that officer's name, and took all the credit to himself. He was rewarded by being made a baronet, and by being voted a pension, by parliament, of five thousand a year.

James Walsham, having no duties during the fight at the camp, had taken a musket and lain down behind the logs with the soldiers, and had, all the afternoon, kept up a fire at the trees and bushes behind which the enemy were hiding. After the battle, he had volunteered to assist the over-worked surgeons, whose labours lasted through the night. When he found that no forward movement was likely to take place, he determined to leave the camp. He therefore asked Captain Rogers, who was the leader of a band of scouts, and a man of extraordinary energy and enterprise, to allow him to accompany him on a scouting expedition towards Ticonderoga.

"I shall be glad to have you with me," Rogers replied; "but you know it is a service of danger. It is not like work with regular troops, where all march, fight, stand, or fall together. Here each man fights for himself. Mind, there is not a man among my band who would not risk his life for the rest; but, scattered through the woods as each man is, each must perforce rely principally on himself. The woods near Ticonderoga will be full of lurking redskins, and a man may be brained and scalped without his fellow, a few yards away, hearing a sound. I only say this that you may feel that you must take your chances. The men under me are, every one, old hunters and Indian fighters, and are a match for the redskin in every move of forest war. They are true grit to the backbone, but they are rough outspoken men, and, on a service when a foot carelessly placed on a dried twig, or a word spoken above a whisper, may bring a crowd of yelping redskins upon us, and cost every man his scalp, they would speak sharply to the king himself, if he were on the scout with them, and you must not take offence at any rough word that may be said."

James laughed, and said that he should not care how much he was blown up, and that he should thankfully receive any lessons from such masters of forest craft.

"Very well," Captain Rogers said. "In that case, it is settled. I will let you have a pair of moccasins. You cannot go walking about in the woods in those boots. You had better get a rifle. Your sword you had best leave behind. It will be of no use to you, and will only be in your way."

James had no difficulty in providing himself with a gun, for numbers of weapons, picked up in the woods after the rout of the enemy, were stored in camp. The rifles had, however, been all taken by the troops, who had exchanged their own firelocks for them. Captain Rogers went with him among the men, and selected a well-finished rifle of which one of them had possessed himself. Its owner readily agreed to accept five pounds for it, taking in its stead one of the guns in the store. Before choosing it, Captain Rogers placed a bit of paper against a tree, and fired several shots at various distances at it.

"It is a beautiful rifle," he said. "Its only fault is that it is rather heavy, but it shoots all the better for it. It is evidently a French gun, I should say by a first-rate maker, built probably for some French officer who knew what he was about. It is a good workmanlike piece, and, when you learn to hold it straight, you can trust it to shoot."

That evening James, having made all his preparations, said goodbye to the general and to his other friends, and joined the scouts who were gathering by the shore of the lake. Ten canoes, each of which would carry three men, were lying by the shore.

"Nat, you and Jonathan will take this young fellow with you. He is a lad, and it is his first scout. You will find him of the right sort. He was with Braddock, and after that affair hurried up here to see fighting on the lakes. He can't have two better nurses than you are. He is going to be an officer in the king's army, and wants to learn as much as he can, so that, if he ever gets with his men into such a mess as Braddock tumbled into, he will know what to do with them."

"All right, captain! We will do our best for him. It's risky sort of business ours for a greenhorn, but if he is anyways teachable, we will soon make a man of him."

The speaker was a wiry, active man of some forty years old, with a weatherbeaten face, and a keen gray eye. Jonathan, his comrade, was a head taller, with broad shoulders, powerful limbs, and a quiet but good-tempered face.

"That's so, isn't it, Jonathan?" Nat asked.

Jonathan nodded. He was not a man of many words.

"Have you ever been in a canoe before?" Nat inquired.

"Never," James said; "but I am accustomed to boats of all sorts, and can handle an oar fairly."

"Oars ain't no good here," the scout said. "You will have to learn to paddle; but, first of all, you have got to learn to sit still. These here canoes are awkward things for a beginner. Now you hand in your traps, and I will stow them away, then you take your place in the middle of the boat. Here's a paddle for you, and when you begin to feel yourself comfortable, you can start to try with it, easy and gentle to begin with; but you must lay it in when we get near where we may expect that redskins may be in the woods, for the splash of a paddle might cost us all our scalps."

James took his seat in the middle of the boat. Jonathan was behind him. Nat handled the paddle in the bow. There was but a brief delay in starting, and the ten boats darted noiselessly out on to the lake. For a time, James did not attempt to use his paddle. The canoe was of birch bark, so thin that it seemed to him that an incautious movement would instantly knock a hole through her.

Once under weigh, she was steadier than he had expected, and James could feel her bound forward with each stroke of the paddles. When he became accustomed to the motion of the boat, he raised himself from a sitting position in the bottom, and, kneeling as the others were doing, he began to dip his paddle quietly in the water in time with their stroke. His familiarity with rowing rendered it easy for him to keep time and swing, and, ere long, he found himself putting a considerable amount of force into each stroke. Nat looked back over his shoulder.

"Well done, young 'un. That's first rate for a beginner, and it makes a deal of difference on our arms. The others are all paddling three, and, though Jonathan and I have beaten three before now, when our scalps depended on our doing so, it makes all the difference in the work whether you have a sitter to take along, or an extra paddle going."

It was falling dusk when the boat started, and was, by this time, quite dark. Scarce a word was heard in the ten canoes as, keeping near the right-hand shore of the lake, they glided rapidly along in a close body. So noiselessly were the paddles dipped into the water that the drip from them, as they were lifted, was the only sound heard.

Four hours' steady paddling took them to the narrows, about five-and-twenty miles from their starting point. Here, on the whispered order of Nat, James laid in his paddle; for, careful as he was, he occasionally made a slight splash as he put it in the water. The canoes now kept in single file, almost under the trees on the right bank, for the lake was here scarce a mile across, and watchful eyes might be on the lookout on the shore to the left. Another ten miles was passed, and then the canoes were steered in to the shore.

The guns, blankets, and bundles were lifted out; the canoes raised on the shoulders of the men, and carried a couple of hundred yards among the trees; then, with scarcely a word spoken, each man rolled himself in his blanket and lay down to sleep, four being sent out as scouts in various directions. Soon after daybreak, all were on foot again, although it had been arranged that no move should be made till night set in. No fires were lighted, for they had brought with them a supply of biscuit and dry deers' flesh sufficient for a week.

"How did you get on yesterday?" Captain Rogers asked, as he came up to the spot where James had just risen to his feet.

"First rate, captain!" Nat answered for him. "I hardly believed that a young fellow could have handled a paddle so well, at the first attempt. He rowed all the way, except just the narrows, and though I don't say as he was noiseless, he did wonderfully well, and we came along with the rest as easy as may be."

"I thought I heard a little splash, now and then," the captain said, smiling; "but it was very slight, and could do no harm where the lake is two or three miles wide, as it is here. But you will have to lay in your paddle when we get near the other end, for the sides narrow in there, and the redskins would hear a fish jump, half a mile away."

During the day the men passed their time in sleep, in mending their clothes, or in talking quietly together. The use of tea had not yet become general in America, and the meals were washed down with water drawn from the lake (where an over-hanging bush shaded the shore from the sight of anyone on the opposite bank), mixed with rum from the gourds which all the scouts carried.

Nat spent some time in pointing out, to James, the signs by which the hunters found their way through the forest; by the moss and lichens growing more thickly on the side of the trunks of the trees opposed to the course of the prevailing winds, or by a slight inclination of the upper boughs of the trees in the same direction.

"An old woodsman can tell," he said, "on the darkest night, on running his hand round the trunk of a tree, by the feel of the bark, which is north and south; but it would be long before you can get to such niceties as that; but, if you keep your eyes open as you go along, and look at the signs on the trunks, which are just as plain, when you once know them, as the marks on a man's face, you will be able to make your way through the woods in the daytime. Of course, when the sun is shining, you get its help, for, although it is not often a gleam comes down through the leaves, sometimes you come upon a little patch, and you are sure, now and then, to strike on a gap where a tree has fallen, and that gives you a line again. A great help to a young beginner is the sun, for a young hand in the woods gets confused, and doubts the signs of the trees; but, in course, when he comes on a patch of sunlight, he can't make a mistake nohow as to the direction."

James indulged in a silent hope that, if he were ever lost in the woods, the sun would be shining, for, look as earnestly as he would, he could not perceive the signs which appeared so plain and distinct to the scout. Occasionally, indeed, he fancied that there was some slight difference between one side of the trunk and the other; but he was by no means sure that, even in these cases, he should have noticed it unless it had been pointed out to him; while, in the greater part of the trees he could discern no difference whatever.

"It's just habit, my lad," Nat said encouragingly to him; "there's just as much difference between one side of the tree and the other, as there is between two men's faces. It comes of practice. Now, just look at the roots of this tree; don't you see, on one side they run pretty nigh straight out from the trunk, while from the other they go down deep into the ground. That speaks for itself. The tree has thrown out its roots, to claw into the ground and get a hold, on the side from which the wind comes; while, on the other side, having no such occasion, it has dipped its root down to look for moisture and food."

"Yes, I do see that," James said, "that is easy enough to make out; but the next tree, and the next, and, as far as I see, all the others, don't seem to have any difference in their roots one side or the other."

"That is so," the scout replied. "You see, those are younger trees than this, and it is like enough they did not grow under the same circumstances. When a few trees fall, or a small clearing is made by a gale, the young trees that grow up are well sheltered from the wind by the forest, and don't want to throw out roots to hold them up; but when a great clearing has been made, by a fire or other causes, the trees, as they grow up together, have no shelter, and must stretch out their roots to steady them.

"Sometimes, you will find all the trees, for a long distance, with their roots like this; sometimes only one tree among a number. Perhaps, when they started, that tree had more room, or a deeper soil, and grew faster than the rest, and got his head above them, so he felt the wind more, and had to throw out his roots to steady himself; while the others, all growing the same height, did not need to do so."

"Thank you," James said. "I understand now, and will bear it in mind. It is very interesting, and I should like, above all things, to be able to read the signs of the woods as you do."

"It will come, lad. It's a sort of second nature. These things are gifts. The redskin thinks it just as wonderful that the white man should be able to take up a piece of paper covered with black marks, and to read off sense out of them, as you do that he should be able to read every mark and sign of the wood. He can see, as plain as if the man was still standing on it, the mark of a footprint, and can tell you if it was made by a warrior or a squaw, and how long they have passed by, and whether they were walking fast or slow; while the ordinary white man might go down on his hands and knees, and stare at the ground, and wouldn't be able to see the slightest sign or mark. For a white man, my eyes are good, but they are not a patch on a redskin's. I have lived among the woods since I was a boy; but even now, a redskin lad can pick up a trail and follow it when, look as I will, I can't see as a blade of grass has been bruised. No; these things is partly natur and partly practice. Practice will do a lot for a white man; but it won't take him up to redskin natur."

Not until night had fallen did the party again launch their canoes on the lake. Then they paddled for several hours until, as James imagined, they had traversed a greater distance, by some miles, than that which they had made on the previous evening. He knew, from what he had learned during the day, that they were to land some six miles below the point where Lake George joins Lake Champlain, and where, on the opposite side, on a promontory stretching into the lake, the French were constructing their new fort.

The canoes were to be carried some seven or eight miles through the wood, across the neck of land between the two lakes, and were then to be launched again on Lake Champlain, so that, by following the east shore of that lake, they would pass Ticonderoga at a safe distance. The halt was made as noiselessly as before, and, having hauled up the canoes, the men slept till daybreak; and then, lifting the light craft on their shoulders, started for their journey through the woods. It was toilsome work, for the ground was rough and broken, often thickly covered with underwood. Ridges had to be crossed and deep ravines passed, and, although the canoes were not heavy, the greatest care had to be exercised, for a graze against a projecting bough, or the edge of a rock, would suffice to tear a hole in the thin bark.

It was not until late in the afternoon that they arrived on the shores of Lake Champlain. A fire was lighted now, the greatest care being taken to select perfectly dry sticks, for the Iroquois were likely to be scattered far and wide among the woods. The risk, however, was far less than when in sight of the French side of Lake George. After darkness fell, the canoes were again placed in the water, and, striking across the lake, they followed the right-hand shore. After paddling for about an hour and a half, the work suddenly ceased.

The lake seemed to widen on their left, for they had just passed the tongue of land between the two lakes, and on the opposite shore a number of fires were seen, burning brightly on the hillside. It was Ticonderoga they were now abreast of, the advanced post of the French. They lingered for some time before the paddles were again dipped in water, counting the fires and making a careful note of the position. They paddled on again until some twelve miles beyond the fort, and then crossed the lake and landed on the French shore.

But the canoes did not all approach the shore together, as they had done on the previous nights. They halted half a mile out, and Captain Rogers went forward with his own and another canoe and landed, and it was not for half an hour that the signal was given, by an imitation of the croaking of a frog, that a careful search had ascertained the forest to be untenanted, and the landing safe.

No sooner was the signal given than the canoes were set in motion, and were soon safely hauled up on shore. Five men went out, as usual, as scouts, and the rest, fatigued by their paddle and the hard day's work, were soon asleep.

In the morning they were about to start, and Rogers ordered the canoes to be hauled up and hidden among the bushes, where, having done their work, they would for the present be abandoned, to be recovered and made useful on some future occasion.

The men charged with the work gave a sudden exclamation when they reached the canoes.

"What is that?" Rogers said angrily. "Do you want to bring all the redskins in the forest upon us?"

"The canoes are all damaged," one of the scouts said, coming up to him.

There was a general movement to the canoes, which were lying on the bank a few yards' distance from the water's edge. Every one of them had been rendered useless. The thin birch bark had been gashed and slit, pieces had been cut out, and not one of them had escaped injury or was fit to take the water. Beyond a few low words, and exclamations of dismay, not a word was spoken as the band gathered round the canoes.

"Who were on the watch on this side?" Rogers asked.

"Nat and Jonathan took the first half of the night," one of the scouts said. "Williams and myself relieved them."

As all four were men of the greatest skill and experience, Rogers felt sure that no neglect or carelessness on their part could have led to the disaster.

"Did any of you see any passing boats, or hear any sound on the lake?"

The four men who had been on guard replied in the negative.

"I will swear no one landed near the canoes," Nat said. "There was a glimmer on the water all night; a canoe could not have possibly come near the bank, anywheres here, without our seeing it."

"Then he must have come from the land side," Rogers said. "Some skulking Indian must have seen us out on the lake, and have hidden up when we landed. He may have been in a tree overhead all the time, and, directly the canoes were hauled up, he may have damaged them and made off.

"There is no time to be lost, lads. It is five hours since we landed. If he started at once the redskins may be all round us now. It is no question now of our scouting round the French fort, it is one of saving our scalps."

"How could it have been done?" James Walsham asked Nat, in a low tone. "We were all sleeping within a few yards of the canoes, and some of the men were close to them. I should have thought we must have heard it."

"Heard it!" the hunter said contemptuously; "why, a redskin would make no more noise in cutting them holes and gashes, than you would in cutting a hunk of deer's flesh for your dinner. He would lie on the ground, and wriggle from one to another like an eel; but I reckon he didn't begin till the camp was still. The canoes wasn't hauled up till we had sarched the woods, as we thought, and then we was moving about close by them till we lay down.

"I was standing theer on the water's edge not six feet away from that canoe. I never moved for two hours, and, quiet as a redskin may be, he must have taken time to do that damage, so as I never heard a sound as loud as the falling of a leaf. No, I reckon as he was at the very least two hours over that job. He may have been gone four hours or a bit over, but not more; but that don't give us much of a start. It would take him an hour and a half to get to the fort, then he would have to report to the French chap in command, and then there might be some talk before he set out with the redskins, leaving the French to follow."

"It's no use thinking of mending the canoes, I suppose," James asked.

The hunter shook his head.

"It would take two or three hours to get fresh bark and mend those holes," he said, "and we haven't got as many minutes to spare. There, now, we are off."

While they had been speaking, Rogers had been holding a consultation with two or three of his most experienced followers, and they had arrived at pretty nearly the same conclusion as that of Rogers, namely, that the Indian had probably taken two or three hours in damaging the canoes and getting fairly away into the forest; but that, even if he had done so, the Iroquois would be up in the course of half an hour.

"Let each man pack his share of meat on his back," Rogers said. "Don't leave a scrap behind. Quick, lads, there's not a minute to be lost. It's a case of legs, now. There's no hiding the trail of thirty men from redskin eyes."

In a couple of minutes, all were ready for the start, and Rogers at once led the way, at a long slinging trot, straight back from the lake, first saying:

"Pick your way, lads, and don't tread on a fallen stick. There is just one chance of saving our scalps, and only one, and that depends upon silence."

As James ran along, at the heels of Nat, he was struck with the strangeness of the scene, and the noiselessness with which the band of moccasin-footed men flitted among the trees. Not a word was spoken. All had implicit confidence in their leader, the most experienced bush fighter on the frontier, and knew that, if anyone could lead them safe from the perils that surrounded them, it was Rogers.

James wondered what his plan could be. It seemed certain to him that the Indians must, sooner or later, overtake them. They would be aware of the strength of the band, and, confiding in their superior numbers, would be able to push forward in pursuit without pausing for many precautions. Once overtaken, the band must stand at bay, and, even could they hold the Indians in check, the sound of the firing would soon bring the French soldiers to the spot.

They had been gone some twenty minutes only, when a distant war whoop rose in the forest behind them.

"They have come down on the camp," Nat said, glancing round over his shoulder, "and find we have left it. I expect they hung about a little before they ventured in, knowing as we should be expecting them, when we found the canoes was useless. That war whoop tells 'em all as we have gone. They will gather there, and then be after us like a pack of hounds.

"Ah! That is what I thought the captain was up to."

Rogers had turned sharp to the left, the direction in which Ticonderoga stood. He slacked down his speed somewhat, for the perspiration was streaming down the faces even of his trained and hardy followers. From time to time, he looked round to see that all were keeping well together. Although, in such an emergency as this, none thought of questioning the judgment of their leader, many of them were wondering at the unusual speed at which he was leading them along. They had some two miles start of their pursuers, and, had evening been at hand, they would have understood the importance of keeping ahead until darkness came on to cover their trail; but, with the whole day before them, they felt that they must be overtaken sooner or later, and they could not see the object of exhausting their strength before the struggle began.

As they ran on, at a somewhat slower pace now, an idea as to their leader's intention dawned upon most of the scouts, who saw, by the direction they were taking, that they would again strike the lake shore near the French fort. Nat, who, light and wiry, was running easily, while many of his comrades were panting with their exertions, was now by the side of James Walsham.

"Give me your rifle, lad, for a bit. You are new to this work, and the weight of the gun takes it out of you. We have got another nine or ten miles before us, yet."

"I can hold on for a bit," James replied. "I am getting my wind better, now; but why only ten miles? We must be seventy away from the fort."

"We should never get there," Nat said. "A few of us might do it, but the redskins would be on us in an hour or two. I thought, when we started, as the captain would have told us to scatter, so as to give each of us some chance of getting off; but I see his plan now, and it's the only one as there is which gives us a real chance. He is making straight for the French fort. He reckons, no doubt, as the best part of the French troops will have marched out after the redskins."

"But there would surely be enough left," James said, "to hold the fort against us; and, even if we could take it, we could not hold it an hour when they all came up."

"He ain't thinking of the fort, boy, he's thinking of the boats. We know as they have lots of 'em there, and, if we can get there a few minutes before the redskins overtake us, we may get off safe. It's a chance, but I think it's a good one."

Others had caught their leader's idea and repeated it to their comrades, and the animating effect soon showed itself in the increased speed with which the party hurried through the forest. Before, almost every man had thought their case hopeless, had deemed that they had only to continue their flight until overtaken by the redskins, and that they must, sooner or later, succumb to the rifles of the Iroquois and their French allies. But the prospect that, after an hour's run, a means of escape might be found, animated each man to renewed efforts.

After running for some distance longer, Rogers suddenly halted and held up his hand, and the band simultaneously came to a halt. At first, nothing could be heard save their own quick breathing; then a confused noise was heard to their left front, a deep trampling and the sound of voices, and an occasional clash of arms.

"It is the French column coming out," Nat whispered, as Rogers, swerving somewhat to the right, and making a sign that all should run as silently as possible, continued his course.



Chapter 12: A Commission.

Presently the noise made by the column of French troops was heard abreast of the fugitives. Then it died away behind them, and they again directed their course to the left. Ten minutes later, they heard a loud succession of Indian whoops, and knew that the redskins pursuing them had also heard the French column on its march, and would be warning them of the course which the band were taking. The scouts were now but four miles from Ticonderoga, and each man knew that it was a mere question of speed.

"Throw away your meat," Rogers ordered, "you will not want it now, and every pound tells."

The men had already got rid of their blankets, and were now burdened only with their rifles and ammunition. The ground was rough and broken, for they were nearing the steep promontory on which the French fort had been erected. They were still a mile ahead of their pursuers, and although the latter had gained that distance upon them since the first start, the scouts knew that, now they were exerting themselves to the utmost, the redskins could be gaining but little upon them, for the trained white man is, in point of speed and endurance, fairly a match for the average Indian.

They had now descended to within a short distance of the edge of the lake, in order to avoid the valleys and ravines running down from the hills. The war whoops rose frequently in the forest behind them, the Indians yelling to give those at the fort notice that the chase was approaching.

"If there war any redskins left at the fort," Nat said to James, "they would guess what our game was; but I expect every redskin started out on the hunt, and the French soldiers, when they hear the yelling, won't know what to make of it, and, if they do anything, they will shut themselves up in their fort."

Great as were the exertions which the scouts were making, they could tell, by the sound of the war whoops, that some at least of the Indians were gaining upon them. Accustomed as every man of the party was to the fatigues of the forest, the strain was telling upon them all now. For twelve miles they had run almost at the top of their speed, and the short panting breath, the set faces, and the reeling steps showed that they were nearly at the end of their powers. Still they held on, with scarcely any diminishing of speed. Each man knew that if he fell, he must die, for his comrades could do nothing for him, and no pause was possible until the boats were gained.

They were passing now under the French works, for they could hear shouting on the high ground to the right, and knew that the troops left in the fort had taken the alarm; but they were still invisible, for it was only at the point of the promontory that the clearing had been carried down to the water's edge. A low cry of relief burst from the men, as they saw the forest open before them, and a minute later they were running along in the open, near the shore of the lake, at the extremity of the promontory, where, hauled up upon the shore, lay a number of canoes and flat-bottomed boats, used for the conveyance of troops. A number of boatmen were standing near, evidently alarmed by the war cries in the woods. When they saw the party approaching they at once made for the fort, a quarter of a mile away on the high ground, and, almost at the same moment, a dropping fire of musketry opened from the entrenchments.

"Smash the canoes," Rogers said, setting the example by administering a vigorous kick to one of them.

The others followed his example, and, in a few seconds, every one of the frail barks was stove in.

"Two of the boats will hold us well," Rogers said; "quick, into the water with them, and out with the oars. Ten row in each boat. Let the other five handle their rifles, and keep back the Indians as they come up. Never mind the soldiers."

For the white-coated troops, perceiving the scouts' intention, were now pouring out from the intrenchments.

A couple of minutes sufficed for the men to launch the boats and take their seats, and the oars dipped in the water just as three or four Indians dashed out from the edge of the forest.

"We have won the race by three minutes," Rogers said, exultantly. "Stretch to your oars, lads, and get out of range as soon as you can."

The Indians began to fire as soon as they perceived the boats. They were scarcely two hundred yards away, but they, like the white men, were panting with fatigue, and their bullets flew harmlessly by.

"Don't answer yet," Rogers ordered, as some of the scouts were preparing to fire. "Wait till your hands get steady, and then fire at the French. There won't be many of the redskins up, yet."

The boats were not two hundred yards from shore when the French soldiers reached the edge of the water and opened fire, but at this distance their weapons were of little avail, and, though the bullets splashed thickly around the boats, no one was injured, while several of the French were seen to drop from the fire of the scouts. Another hundred yards, and the boats were beyond any danger, save from a chance shot. The Indians still continued firing, and several of their shots struck the boats, one of the rowers being hit on the shoulder.

"Lay in your rifles, and man the other two oars in each boat," Rogers said. "The French are launching some of their bateaux, but we have got a fair start, and they won't overtake us before we reach the opposite point. They are fresher than we are, but soldiers are no good rowing; besides, they are sure to crowd the boats so that they won't have a chance."

Five or six boats, each crowded with men, started in pursuit, but they were fully half a mile behind when the two English boats reached the shore.

"Now it is our turn," Rogers said, as the men, leaping ashore, took their places behind trees. As soon as the French boats came within range, a steady fire was opened upon them. Confusion was at once apparent among them. Oars were seen to drop, and as the fire continued, the rowing ceased. Another minute and the boats were turned, and were soon rowing out again into the lake.

"There's the end of that," Rogers said, "and a close shave it has been.

"Well, youngster, what do you think of your first scout in the woods?"

"It has been sharper than I bargained for," James said, laughing, "and was pretty near being the last, as well as the first. If it hadn't been for your taking us to the boats, I don't think many of us would have got back to Fort Henry to tell the tale."

"There is generally some way out of a mess," Rogers said, "if one does but think of it. If I had not thought of the French boats, we should have scattered, and a few of us would have been overtaken, no doubt; but even an Indian cannot follow a single trail as fast as a man can run, and I reckon most of us would have carried our scalps back to camp. Still, with the woods full of Iroquois they must have had some of us, and I hate losing a man if it can be helped. We are well out of it.

"Now, lads, we had better be tramping. There are a lot more bateaux coming out, and I expect, by the rowing, they are manned by Indians. The redskin is a first-rate hand with the paddle, but is no good with an oar."

The man who had been hit in the shoulder had already had his wound bandaged. There was a minute's consultation as to whether they should continue their journey in the boats, some of the men pointing out that they had proved themselves faster than their pursuers.

"That may be," Rogers says; "but the Indians will land and follow along the shore, and will soon get ahead of us, for they can travel quicker than we can row, and, for aught we know, there may be a whole fleet of canoes higher up Lake George which would cut us off. No, lads, the safest way is to keep on through the woods."

The decision was received without question, and the party at once started at a swinging trot, which was kept up, with occasional intervals of walking, throughout the day. At nightfall their course was changed, and, after journeying another two or three miles, a halt was called, for Rogers was sure that the Indians would abandon pursuit, when night came on without their having overtaken the fugitives.

Before daybreak the march was continued, and, in the afternoon, the party arrived at Fort William Henry.

James now determined to leave the force, and return at once to New York, where his letters were to be addressed to him. He took with him a letter from General Johnson, speaking in the warmest tones of his conduct.

On arriving at New York he found, at the post office there, a great pile of letters awaiting him. They had been written after the receipt of his letter at the end of July, telling those at home of his share in Braddock's disaster.

"I little thought, my boy," his mother wrote, "when we received your letter, saying that you had got your discharge from the ship, and were going with an expedition against the French, that you were going to run into such terrible danger. Fortunately, the same vessel which brought the news of General Braddock's defeat also brought your letter, and we learned the news only a few hours before your letter reached us. It was, as you may imagine, a time of terrible anxiety to us, and the squire and Aggie were almost as anxious as I was. Mr. Wilks did his best to cheer us all, but I could see that he, too, felt it very greatly. However, when your letter came we were all made happy again, though, of course, we cannot be but anxious, as you say you are just going to join another expedition; still, we must hope that that will do better, as it won't be managed by regular soldiers. Mr. Wilks was quite angry at what you said about the folly of making men stand in a line to be shot at, he thinks so much of drill and discipline. The squire and he have been arguing quite fiercely about it; but the squire gets the best of the argument, for the dreadful way in which the soldiers were slaughtered shows that, though that sort of fighting may be good in other places, it is not suited for fighting these wicked Indians in the woods.

"The squire has himself been up to London about your commission, and has arranged it all. He has, as he will tell you in his letter, got you a commission in the regiment commanded by Colonel Otway, which is to go out next spring. He was introduced to the commander in chief by his friend, and told him that you had been acting as Colonel Washington's aide-de-camp with General Braddock, and that you have now gone to join General Johnson's army; so the duke said that, though you would be gazetted at once, and would belong to the regiment, you might as well stay out there and see service until it arrived; and that it would be a great advantage to the regiment to have an officer, with experience in Indian fighting, with it. I cried when he brought me back the news, for I had hoped to have you back again with us for a bit, before you went soldiering for good. However, the squire seems to think it is a capital thing for you. Mr. Wilks thinks so, too, so I suppose I must put up with it; but Aggie agrees with me, and says it is too bad that she should never have seen you, once, from the time when she saw you in that storm.

"She is a dear little girl, and is growing fast. I think she must have grown quite an inch in the five months you have been away. She sends her love to you, and says you must take care of yourself, for her sake."

The squire, in his letter, repeated the news Mrs. Walsham had given.

"You are now an ensign," he said, "and, if you go into any more fights before your regiment arrives, you must, Mr. Wilks said, get a proper uniform made for you, and fight as a king's officer. I send you a copy of the gazette, where you will see your name."

Mr. Wilks's letter was a long one.

"I felt horribly guilty, dear Jim," he said, "when the news came of Braddock's dreadful defeat. I could hardly look your dear mother in the face, and, though the kind lady would not, I know, say a word to hurt my feelings for the world, yet I could see that she regarded me as a monster, for it was on my advice that, instead of coming home when you got your discharge, you remained out there and took part in this unfortunate expedition. I could see Aggie felt the same, and, though I did my best to keep up their spirits, I had a terrible time of it until your letter arrived, saying you were safe. If it had not come, I do believe that I should have gone quietly off to Exeter, hunted up my box again, and hired a boy to push it for me, for I am not so strong as I was. But I would rather have tramped about, for the rest of my life, than remain there under your mother's reproachful eye. However, thank God you came through it all right, and, after such a lesson, I should hope that we shall never have repetition of such a disaster as that. As an old soldier, I cannot agree with what you say about the uselessness of drill, even for fighting in a forest. It must accustom men to listen to the voice of their officers, and to obey orders promptly and quickly, and I cannot but think that, if the troops had gone forward at a brisk double, they would have driven the Indians before them. As to the whooping and yells you talk so much about, I should think nothing of them; they are no more to be regarded than the shrieks of women, or the braying of donkeys."

James smiled as he read this, and thought that, if the old soldier had heard that chaos of blood-curdling cries break out, in the still depth of the forest, he would not write of them with such equanimity.

"You will have heard, from the squire, that you are gazetted to Otway's regiment which, with others, is to cross the Atlantic in a few weeks, when it is generally supposed war will be formally declared. Your experience will be of great use to you, and ought to get you a good staff appointment. I expect that, in the course of a year, there will be fighting on a large scale on your side of the water, and the English ought to get the best of it, for France seems, at present, to be thinking a great deal more of her affairs in Europe than of her colonies in America. So much the better, for, if we can take Canada, we shall strike a heavy blow to her trade, and some day North America is going to be an important place in the world."

The letters had been lying there several weeks, and James knew that Otway's regiment had, with the others, arrived a few days before, and had already marched for Albany. Thinking himself entitled to a little rest, after his labours, he remained for another week in New York, while his uniform was being made, and then took a passage in a trading boat up to Albany.

Scarcely had he landed, when a young officer in the same uniform met him. He looked surprised, hesitated, and then stopped.

"I see you belong to our regiment," he said. "Have you just arrived from England? What ship did you come in?"

"I have been out here some time," James replied. "My name is Walsham. I believe I was gazetted to your regiment some months ago, but I only heard the news on my arrival at New York last week."

"Oh, you are Walsham!" the young officer said. "My name is Edwards. I am glad to meet you. We have been wondering when you would join us, and envying your luck, in seeing so much of the fighting out here. Our regiment is encamped about half a mile from here. If you will let me, I will go back with you, and introduce you to our fellows."

James thanked him, and the two walked along talking together. James learned that there were already five ensigns junior to himself, his new acquaintance being one of them, as the regiment had been somewhat short of officers, and the vacancies had been filled up shortly before it sailed.

"Of course, we must call on the colonel first," Mr. Edwards said. "He is a capital fellow, and very much liked in the regiment."

Colonel Otway received James with great cordiality.

"We are very glad to get you with us, Mr. Walsham," he said, "and we consider it a credit to the regiment to have a young officer who has been, three times, mentioned in despatches. You will, too, be a great service to us, and will be able to give us a good many hints as to this Indian method of fighting, which Braddock's men found so terrible."