Fritz soon found that this was no exaggeration.  Howe was a splendid comrade and Ranger, full of courage, the hardiest of the hardy, never failing in spirits whatever were the hardships of the life, and showing such aptitude for generalship and command that already he had made his mark amongst the hardy Rangers, and was entrusted with enterprises of difficulty and danger.

It was not much that could be done against the foe with the inclement winter season approaching.  The snow fell early.  The Canadians and regulars had gone into winter quarters; but there was still a garrison in Ticonderoga, and to harass and despoil that garrison was the pastime of the Rangers.  They stole beneath the walls upon the frozen lake.  They carried off cattle, and made banquets off their carcasses.  If they could not do with all the meat themselves, they would leave the carcasses at the foot of the walls, sometimes with mocking letters attached to the horns.

Thus, after a more than usually successful raid, when they had taken two prisoners and driven off a number of head of cattle, they tied to the horns of one of the slain beasts the following words, written large for all to read.

“I am obliged to you, sir, for the rest you have allowed me to take, and for the fresh meat you have supplied me with.  I shall take good care of my prisoners.  My compliments to the Marquis de Montcalm.

“—­(Signed)

“Rogers.”

But in spite of these successful raids, a misfortune was in store for the gallant Rangers in the early spring which broke up and scattered their band for that season, and spread throughout the district the false report of Rogers’ death.

Captain Hebecourt was commanding the French at Ticonderoga, and in March he received large reinforcements of Canadians and Indians, and the latter instantly detected recent marks of snowshoes in the vicinity betraying the neighbourhood of white men.  An attack was therefore organized to try to rid the place of the pestilent Rangers, as the French called them; whilst, as it so happened, the Rangers had no knowledge of the reinforcements which had come in to the fort.

Rogers’ fault was ever a daring rashness, and when one day he and his little band saw the advance of a party of Indians, he drew his men under cover and greeted them with a hot and fatal fire.

But this was only the advance guard.  Unknown and unguessed at by Rogers, the large body behind was approaching, and the next moment the whole place was echoing with triumphant yells, as the pursuing Rangers were met by a compact force outnumbering them by four to one, who sprang furiously upon them, trying to hack them to pieces.

Rogers, gallantly backed by Lord Howe, who had all the instinct of the true general, recalled them hastily and formed them up on the slope of a hill, where they made a gallant stand, and drove back the enemy again and again.  But outnumbered as they were, it was a terrible struggle, and Ranger after Ranger dropped at his post; whilst at last the cry was raised that the foe had surrounded them upon the rear, and nothing was left them but to take to the forest in flight.