More satisfactory still, they released from captivity eleven prisoners, white men with women and children, who had been carried off at different times when others had been massacred.  From these persons they learned that the Indians of Kittanning had often boasted that they had in the place a stock of ammunition sufficient to keep up a ten years’ war with the English along the borders.  To have taken and destroyed all these stores was no small matter, and the Colonel and his men rejoiced not a little over the blow thus struck at the foe almost in his own land.

But there was no chance of following up the victory.  Armstrong was not strong enough to carry the war into the enemy’s country; moreover, the winter was already upon them, although up till the present the season had been especially mild and open.  He must march his men back to quarters, and provide for the safety of his wounded, and for the restoration of the rescued prisoners to their friends.

He would gladly have kept Stark and his little valiant band with him, but the Rangers had different aims in view.

“We must be up and doing; we must find fighting somewhere.  On Lake George we shall surely find work for men to do.  Rangers of wood and forest care nothing for winter ice and snow.  We will go northward and eastward, asking news of Rogers and his Rangers.  It may be that we shall fall in with them, and that we can make common cause with them against the common foe.”

So said Stark, speaking for all his band, for all were of one heart and one mind.

Therefore, after a few days for rest and refreshment, the little army retreated whence it had come; whilst the bold band of Rangers started forth for the other scene of action, away towards the north, along the frozen lakes which formed one of the highways to Canada.

Chapter 2:  Robert Rogers.

They met for the first time, face to face, amid a world of ice and snow, upon the frozen surface of Lake George.

Stark and his little band had been through strange experiences, and had met with many adventures as they pursued their course towards the spot where they heard that the French and English were lying encamped and intrenched, awaiting the arrival of spring before commencing the campaign afresh; and they now began to have a clearer notion of the situation between the two nations than they had hitherto had.

They had spent a week in the quaint Dutch town of Albany, and there they had heard many things with regard to the state of parties and the affairs between the two nations.

England and France were nominally at peace, or had been, even whilst these murderous onslaughts had been going on in the west.  But it was evident to all that war must be shortly declared between the countries, if it had not already been proclaimed.  The scent of battle seemed in the very air.  Nothing was talked of but the great struggle for supremacy in the west, which must shortly be fought out to the bitter end.