straight for St. Francis, striking it before succors could arrive, and then returning by Lake Memphremagog and the Connecticut.  Accordingly he despatched Lieutenant McMullen by a circuitous route back to Crown Point, with a request to Amherst that provisions should be sent up the Connecticut to meet him on the way down.  Then he set his course for the Indian town, and for nine days more toiled through the forest with desperate energy.  Much of the way was through dense spruce swamps, with no dry resting-place at night.  At length the party reached the River St. Francis, fifteen miles above the town, and, hooking their arms together for mutual support, forded it with extreme difficulty.  Towards evening, Rogers climbed a tree, and descried the town three miles distant.  Accidents, fatigue, and illness had reduced his followers to a hundred and forty-two officers and men.  He left them to rest for a time, and, taking with him Lieutenant Turner and Ensign Avery, went to reconnoitre the place; left his two companions, entered it disguised in an Indian dress, and saw the unconscious savages yelling and signing in the full enjoyment of a grand dance.  At two o’clock in the morning he rejoined his party, and at three led them to the attack, formed them in a semicircle, and burst in upon the town half an hour before sunrise.  Many of the warriors were absent, and the rest were asleep.  Some were killed in their beds, and some shot down in trying to escape.  “About seven o’clock in the morning,” he says, “the affair was completely over, in which time we had killed at least two hundred Indians and taken twenty of their women and children prisoners, fifteen of whom I let go their own way, and five I brought with me, namely, two Indian boys and three Indian girls.  I likewise retook five English captives.”

English scalps in hundreds were dangling from poles over the doors of the houses.[751] The town was pillaged and burned, not excepting the church, where ornaments of some value were found.  On the side of the rangers, Captain Ogden and six men were wounded, and a Mohegan Indian from Stockbridge was killed.  Rogers was told by his prisoners that a party of three hundred French and Indians was encamped on the river below, and that another party of two hundred and fifteen was not far distant.  They had been sent to cut off the retreat of the invaders, but were doubtful as to their designs till after the blow was struck.  There was no time to lose.  The rangers made all haste southward, up the St. Francis, subsisting on corn from the Indian town; till, near the eastern borders of Lake Memphremagog, the supply failed, and they separated into small parties, the better to sustain life by hunting.  The enemy followed close, attacked Ensign Avery’s party, and captured five of them; then fell upon a band of about twenty, under Lieutenants Dunbar and Turner, and killed or captured nearly all.  The other bands eluded their pursuers, turned southeastward, reached the Connecticut, some here, some there, and, giddy with fatigue and hunger, toiled wearily down the wild and lonely stream to the appointed rendezvous at the mouth of the Amonoosuc.