The best of them were commonly employed on Lake George; and nothing can surpass the adventurous hardihood of their lives.  Summer and winter, day and night, were alike to them.  Embarked in whaleboats or birch-canoes, they glided under the silent moon or in the languid glare of a breathless August day, when islands floated in dreamy haze, and the hot air was thick with odors of the pine; or in the bright October, when the jay screamed from the woods, squirrels gathered their winter hoard, and congregated blackbirds chattered farewell to their summer haunts; when gay mountains basked in light, maples dropped leaves of rustling gold, sumachs glowed like rubies under the dark green of the unchanging spruce, and mossed rocks with all their painted plumage lay double in the watery mirror:  that festal evening of the year, when jocund Nature disrobes herself, to wake again refreshed in the joy of her undying spring.  Or, in the tomb-like silence of the winter forest, with breath frozen on his beard, the ranger strode on snow-shoes over the spotless drifts; and, like Duerer’s knight, a ghastly death stalked ever at his side.  There were those among them for whom this stern life had a fascination that made all other existence tame.

Rogers and his men had been in active movement since midwinter.  In January they skated down Lake George, passed Ticonderoga, hid themselves by the forest-road between that post and Crown Point, intercepted two sledges loaded with provisions, and carried the drivers to Fort William Henry.  In February they climbed a hill near Crown Point and made a plan of the works; then lay in ambush by the road from the fort to the neighboring village, captured a prisoner, burned houses and barns, killed fifty cattle, and returned without loss.  At the end of the month they went again to Crown Point, burned more houses and barns, and reconnoitred Ticonderoga on the way back.  Such excursions were repeated throughout the spring and summer.  The reconnoissance of Ticonderoga and the catching of prisoners there for the sake of information were always capital objects.  The valley, four miles in extent, that lay between the foot of Lake George and the French fort, was at this time guarded by four distinct outposts or fortified camps.  Watched as it was at all points, and ranged incessantly by Indians in the employ of France, Rogers and his men knew every yard of the ground.  On a morning in May he lay in ambush with eleven followers on a path between the fort and the nearest camp.  A large body of soldiers passed; the rangers counted a hundred and eighteen, and lay close in their hiding-place.  Soon after came a party of twenty-two.  They fired on them, killed six, captured one, and escaped with him to Fort William Henry.  In October Rogers was passing with twenty men in two whaleboats through the seeming solitude of the Narrows when a voice called to them out of the woods.  It was that of Captain Shepherd, of the New Hampshire regiment, who had been