From this part of the shore[617] a plain covered with forest stretched northwestward half a mile or more to the mountains behind which lay the valley of Trout Brook.  On this plain the army began its march in four columns, with the intention of passing round the western bank of the river of the outlet, since the bridge over it had been destroyed.  Rogers, with the provincial regiments of Fitch and Lyman, led the way, at some distance before the rest.  The forest was extremely dense and heavy, and so obstructed with undergrowth that it was impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction, while the ground was encumbered with fallen trees in every stage of decay.  The ranks were broken, and the men struggled on as they could in dampness and shade, under a canopy of boughs that the sun could scarcely pierce.  The difficulty increased when, after advancing about a mile, they came upon undulating and broken ground.  They were now not far from the upper rapids of the outlet.  The guides became bewildered in the maze of trunks and boughs; the marching columns were confused, and fell in one upon the other.  They were in the strange situation of an army lost in the woods.

[Footnote 617:  Between the old and new steamboat-landings, and parts adjacent.]

The advanced party of French under Langy and Trepezec, about three hundred and fifty in all, regulars and Canadians, had tried to retreat; but before they could do so, the whole English army had passed them, landed, and placed itself between them and their countrymen.  They had no resource but to take to the woods.  They seem to have climbed the steep gorge at the side of Rogers Rock and followed the Indian path that led to the valley of Trout Brook, thinking to descend it, and, by circling along the outskirts of the valley of Ticonderoga, reach Montcalm’s camp at the saw-mill.  Langy was used to bushranging; but he too became perplexed in the blind intricacies of the forest.  Towards the close of the day he and his men had come out from the valley of Trout Brook, and were near the junction of that stream with the river of the outlet, in a state of some anxiety, for they could see nothing but brown trunks and green boughs.  Could any of them have climbed one of the great pines that here and there reared their shaggy spires high above the surrounding forest, they would have discovered where they were, but would have gained not the faintest knowledge of the enemy.  Out of the woods on the right they would have seen a smoke rising from the burning huts of the French camp at the head of the portage, which Bourlamaque had set on fire and abandoned.  At a mile or more in front, the saw-mill at the Falls might perhaps have been descried, and, by glimpses between the trees, the tents of the neighboring camp where Montcalm still lay with his main force.  All the rest seemed lonely as the grave; mountain and valley lay wrapped in primeval woods, and none could have dreamed that, not far distant, an army was groping its way, buried in foliage; no rumbling of wagons and artillery trains, for none were there; all silent but the cawing of some crow flapping his black wings over the sea of tree-tops.