LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 11:

       Scouting.

       Table of Contents

      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

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