“To the woods, men, to the woods!” shouted Rogers.  “Leave me, and every man for himself!”

Indeed it was soon impossible for any party to keep together.  It was just one dash from tree to tree for bare life, seeking to evade the wily foe, and seeing brave comrades drop at every turn.

Rogers, Howe, and about twenty fine fellows were making a running fight for it along the crest of the ridge.  Pringle, Roche, and Fritz were separated from these, but kept together, and by the use of all their strength and sagacity succeeded in eluding the Indians and hiding themselves in the snow-covered forest.

All was desolation around them.  A heavy snowstorm gathered and burst.  They were hopelessly separated from their comrades, and Fritz, who was their guide in woodcraft, was wounded in the head, and in a strangely dazed condition.

“I can take you to Rogers’ camp, nevertheless,” he kept repeating.  “We must not lie down, or we shall die.  But I can find the road—­I can find the road.  I know the forest in all its aspects; I shall not lose the way.”

It was a terrible night.  They had no food but a little ginger which Pringle chanced to have in his pocket, and a bit of a sausage that Roche had secreted about him.  The snow drifted in their faces.  They were wearied to death, yet dared not lie down; and though always hoping to reach the spot where Fritz declared that Rogers was certain to be found, they discovered, when the grey light of morning came, that they had only fetched a circle, and were at the place they had started from, in perilous proximity to the French fort.

Yet as they gazed at one another in mute despair a more terrible thing happened.  The Indian war whoop sounded loud in their ears, and a band of savages dashed out upon them.  Before they could attempt resistance in their numbed state, they were surrounded and carried off captive.

“We can die like men; that is all that is left to us!” said Pringle, pressing up to Roche to whisper in his ear.  “Heaven grant they kill us quickly; it is the only grace we can hope for now.”

Dizzy and faint and exhausted, they were hurried along by their captors they knew not whither.  They had come out from the forest, and the sun was beginning to shine round them, when they suddenly heard a voice shouting out something the meaning of which they could not catch; and the next moment a body of white men came running up wearing the familiar uniform of French soldiers and officers.

“Uncle!” cried a lad’s clear voice, speaking in French, a language perfectly intelligible to Fritz, “that tall man there is the one who saved Corinne and me in the forest that day when we were surrounded and nearly taken by the Rangers.  Get him away from the Indians; they shall not have him!  He saved us from peril once; we must save him now.”

“Assuredly, my son,” came the response, in a full, sonorous voice; and Fritz, rallying his failing powers, shook off for a moment the mists which seemed to enwrap him, and saw that a fine-looking man of benevolent aspect, wearing the habit of an ecclesiastic, was speaking earnestly to the Indians who had them in their hands, whilst several French officers and soldiers had formed up round them.