drizzling rain, and the softened snow stuck to their snow-shoes.  They marched eastward three miles through the dripping forest, til they reached the banks of Lake Champlain, near what is now called Five Mile Point, and presently saw a sledge, drawn by horses, moving on the ice from Ticonderoga towards Crown Point.  Rogers sent Stark along the shore to the left to head it off, while he with another party, covered by the woods, moved in the opposite direction to stop its retreat.  He soon saw eight or ten more sledges following the first, and sent a messenger to prevent Stark from showing himself too soon; but Stark was already on the ice.

All the sledges turned back in hot haste.  The rangers ran in pursuit and captured three of them, with seven men and six horses, while the rest escaped to Ticonderoga.  The prisoners, being separately examined, told an ominous tale.  There were three hundred and fifty regulars at Ticonderoga; two hundred Canadians and forty-five Indians had lately arrived there, and more Indians were expected that evening,—­all destined to waylay the communications between the English forts, and all prepared to march at a moment’s notice.  The rangers were now in great peril.  The fugitives would give warning of their presence, and the French and Indians, in overwhelming force, would no doubt cut off their retreat.

Rogers at once ordered his men to return to their last night’s encampment, rekindle the fires, and dry their guns, which were wet by the rain of the morning.  Then they marched southward in single file through the snow-encumbered forest, Rogers and Kennedy in the front, Spikeman in the centre, and Stark in the rear.  In this order they moved on over broken and difficult ground till two in the afternoon, when they came upon a valley, or hollow, scarcely a musket-shot wide, which ran across their line of march, and, like all the rest of the country, was buried in thick woods.  The front of the line had descended the first hill, and was mounting that on the farther side, when the foremost men heard a low clicking sound, like the cocking of a great number of guns; and in an instant a furious volley blazed out of the bushes on the ridge above them.  Kennedy was killed outright, as also was Gardner, one of the volunteers.  Rogers was grazed in the head by a bullet, and others were disabled or hurt.  The rest returned the fire, while a swarm of French and Indians rushed upon them from the ridge and the slopes on either hand, killing several more, Spikeman among the rest, and capturing others.  The rangers fell back across the hollow and regained the hill they had just descended.  Stark with the rear, who were at the top when the fray began, now kept the assailants in check by a brisk fire till their comrades joined them.  Then the whole party, spreading themselves among the trees that covered the declivity, stubbornly held their ground and beat back the French in repeated attempts to dislodge them.  As the assailants