friend, hastened to the spot, and with the butt end of his piece laid the Frenchman dead at his feet. Speedily rejoining their party, they made good their retreat.

Putnam was present at the siege of Montreal, in 1760, at the capture of Havana, in 1762, and in 1764 was a colonel in Bradstreet's expedition against the western Indians. His military reputation was of great service to the patriot cause at the outset of the Revolution, inspiring his countrymen with the confidence they so much needed to enable them to confront the great military power they were then defying.

He was a conspicuous figure at the siege of Boston, and at Bunker Hill seems to have exercised, at the redoubt, the breast work, the rail-fence, and in the retreat, all the functions of a commanding officer. While commanding at the Highlands of New York he made the judicious selection of West Point as the site of a fortress. While posted at Reading, Connecticut, in 1778, with only a picket-guard, he was suddenly attacked by the British troops, and escaped by plunging down a precipice where the dragoons in pursuit of him dared not follow. One of their bullets having pierced his hat, Tryon, their commander, by way of compensation, sent him soon afterwards a complete suit of clothes. He had an attack of paralysis in the fall of 1779, and died at Brooklyn, Connecticut, May 29, 1790. Putnam was a good executive officer, but was more brave than

prudent. Though wanting in dignity, he possessed a large share of those nobler attributes, humanity and generosity.

Few men ever encountered such a variety of dangers, or faced death in so many different forms. From the fierce she-wolf in her den-a story with which all boys are familiar; the burning powder-magazine at Fort Edward; the fiery torture at the stake; the tomahawk and the bullet of the concealed savage whose forest haunts he invaded; close and bloody contests with Indians and Frenchmen in the Old French War; at the Havana, fighting at the same time the Spaniard and the pestilence, which proved fatal to so many of his companions; and lastly at Bunker Hill and on other Revolutionary fields a conspicuous target for British bullets. With the exception of the singeing he got at Fort Edward, and the cruelties inflicted upon him while a prisoner, he escaped, as by a miracle, from all these manifold perils without a wound.

We come now to the last exploit of this famous corps of Rangers. The village of the St. Francis Indians was situated in the heart of Canada, midway between Montreal and Quebec. This tribe was wholly in the interest of the French, and had for a century past harassed the New England frontier even in times of peace. During the past six years they had killed and carried away more than six hundred persons, and it was determined by Amherst, the British commander-in-chief, that a signal chastisement should be inflicted upon them. To this arduous service the Rangers were assigned.

The march through two hundred miles of unbroken wilderness was one of great difficulty and no slight peril. The boats of the Rangers, in which were the provisions for their home journey, had been left at Missisqui Bay, and they soon learned that these had fallen into the hands of the enemy, who were following in their track. This was a serious blow, and threatened the ruin of their enterprise, but they determined to push on, and accomplish their object by outmarching their pursuers.

For nine days their route lay through a spruce-bog, a portion of which was covered with water a foot deep. When they encamped at night, boughs were cut from the trees, and a kind of rude hammock constructed to keep them from the water. Their daily march began a little before daybreak, and continued until after dark at night. The tenth day after leaving the bay found them at a river fifteen miles north of St. Francis, which they were compelled to ford against a swift current. To accomplish this the tallest men were put up stream, and holding by each other the party crossed in safety.

Twenty-two days after leaving Crown Point, Rogers's party, number

ing one hundred and fifty-two, men and officers, came in sight of the Indian town. Upon climbing a tree it was revealed to them at a distance of three miles. On reconnoitring the village, the Indians were seen to be engaged in a "high frolic"-a wedding celebration, as it proved—and were dancing and enjoying themselves as was customary upon such occasions.

Oct. 5, 1759.

Half an hour before sunrise the Rangers rushed upon the sleeping village. The surprise was complete. The Indians had no time to arm themselves, and in a few minutes the work was done. Two hundred of them were killed, some women and children were captured, five English prisoners released, and the village was wholly consumed. Six hundred human scalps were found hanging upon poles over the doors of the wigwams.

For their subsistence on the march home, the Rangers loaded themselves with corn, the only provision to be found. From the prisoners they learned that three hundred French and Indians were close at hand, in addition to the party already known to be in pursuit. It was at once determined to return by a different route from that by which they came, and that by the Connecticut River to Number Four (Charlestown, N. H.) was selected. The annals of the wilderness contain no more thrilling chapter than that which records their sufferings during this terrible journey. Hunger and privation of every kind-these they were familiar with; a vengeful foe following upon their track-even this inspired no especial dread; but starvation! that was an enemy before whom the stoutest and bravest quailed. Some of the details of their sufferings are too shocking for repetition.

After repulsing repeated attacks, Rogers at length turned upon his pursuers, and dealt them a punishment so severe as to stop further assaults, though the Indians continued to follow him with the tenacity of bloodhounds.

For eight days the Rangers kept together, but at Lake Memphremagog the scarcity of food compelled them to separate into companies, with guides to each. The place where they were to meet was at the mouth of the Ammonoosuck River, to which point supplies had been directed to be sent. On arriving at the Coos Intervales, worn down with hunger and fatigue, they found, to their dismay, that the officer who had been despatched with provisions to their rescue had returned, after waiting but two days, carrying the supplies with him, and that he had been gone hardly two hours!

This was a terrible disappointment. Says Rogers: "We found a fresh fire burning in his camp, and fired guns to bring him back, which he

heard, but would not return, supposing we were an enemy. In this emergency I resolved to make the best of my way to Number Four, leaving the remainder of the party-now unable to proceed farther to obtain such wretched subsistence as the wilderness afforded until I could relieve them, which I promised to do in ten days."

With great difficulty Rogers reached his destination, and on the tenth day after his departure relief reached his men at Coos, as he had promised. Upon the arrival of the survivors at Crown Point, it was ascertained that the Rangers had lost in this retreat three officers and forty-six men. Two of the parties had been overtaken, and most of the men composing them killed or captured by the enemy.

Great as were the sufferings of the other parties, they were as nothing compared with those of Lieutenant George Campbell and his companions. For four days they were without subsistence of any kind whatever. Their misery was so aggravated, by their not knowing whither the route they were following would lead them, that some lost their reason. What leather they had in their cartridge-boxes they had reduced to a cinder and greedily devoured, when relief finally reached them.

The Rangers took part in the final campaign of 1760, which ended in the conquest of Canada, and, in a skirmish with the rear-guard of the retreating French, fired the last hostile guns of the war. By order of General Amherst they were sent to take possession of Detroit, and the other western posts ceded by the French.

Rogers's subsequent career was not particularly creditable to him. While Governor of Michilimackinac, in 1766, he was arrested for plotting to give it up to the Spaniards, and sent in irons to Montreal for trial. He managed to be acquitted of the charge, and on visiting England, in 1769, was presented to the King. Returning to America on the breaking out of the Revolution, in 1775, he was suspected by Washington of being a spy, and prohibited from entering the American camp. Arrested in June, 1776, he was soon released by order of Congress, and at once openly joined the British in violation of his parole of honor. Obtaining a commission as colonel in the British service, he raised a corps known as the Queen's Rangers, afterwards commanded by Colonel Simcoe, and famous for its exploits. Rogers, however, gained no laurels while at its head, and came near being captured in an attack upon an American outpost near Mamaroneck, in New York. He soon afterwards returned to England, where he died near the close of the century.

THE

XII.

PONTIAC'S WAR.

HE seven years' war was over. The long contest for supremacy in America between England and France had ended in the surrender by the latter of Canada and all her western posts. The undefined

1763.

territory of Louisiana, in the South, alone remained to her of all her former extensive possessions in North America. The first act of the great drama of American Independence had been played-a fact of which the chief actors themselves were profoundly ignorant.

But while the conquest of Canada paved the way for the independence of the British colonies, it boded 'no good to the Indian. He saw his danger, and sought to avert it. The firm hold the French had taken on the affections of the western Indians had not been shaken by defeat. They still clung to them, and refused to believe that the hated English had conquered and that their old friends had taken final leave.

This feeling was strengthened by the contrast between the courteous and attentive behavior of the French, and the insolent and brutal treatment received from the English soldiers who replaced them at the frontier posts. The former had supplied them regularly with guns, ammunition, and clothing; the withholding of these by the latter had brought upon them, as a consequence, want, suffering, and death. These evils had been largely increased by their introduction of the hitherto prohibited traffic in rum—“ fire-water," as the Indians expressively called it.

Glancing at the condition of the country beyond the settlements at this time, we find it—with the exception of an occasional Indian village -one vast forest. In it a human being, white or red, was rarely to

be seen.

Contact with the whites had changed, without improving the condition of the red man. The warlike Iroquois had declined in importance. Some of the Delawares and other smaller tribes dwelt upon the head-waters of the Susquehanna and the Alleghany, but the larger part of them lived. upon the Beaver creeks and the Muskingum. The Shawnees were found