James laughed, and said that he should not care how much he was blown up, and that he should thankfully receive any lessons from such masters of forest craft.

“Very well,” Captain Rogers said.  “In that case, it is settled.  I will let you have a pair of moccasins.  You cannot go walking about in the woods in those boots.  You had better get a rifle.  Your sword you had best leave behind.  It will be of no use to you, and will only be in your way.”

James had no difficulty in providing himself with a gun, for numbers of weapons, picked up in the woods after the rout of the enemy, were stored in camp.  The rifles had, however, been all taken by the troops, who had exchanged their own firelocks for them.  Captain Rogers went with him among the men, and selected a well-finished rifle of which one of them had possessed himself.  Its owner readily agreed to accept five pounds for it, taking in its stead one of the guns in the store.  Before choosing it, Captain Rogers placed a bit of paper against a tree, and fired several shots at various distances at it.

“It is a beautiful rifle,” he said.  “Its only fault is that it is rather heavy, but it shoots all the better for it.  It is evidently a French gun, I should say by a first-rate maker, built probably for some French officer who knew what he was about.  It is a good workmanlike piece, and, when you learn to hold it straight, you can trust it to shoot.”

That evening James, having made all his preparations, said goodbye to the general and to his other friends, and joined the scouts who were gathering by the shore of the lake.  Ten canoes, each of which would carry three men, were lying by the shore.

“Nat, you and Jonathan will take this young fellow with you.  He is a lad, and it is his first scout.  You will find him of the right sort.  He was with Braddock, and after that affair hurried up here to see fighting on the lakes.  He can’t have two better nurses than you are.  He is going to be an officer in the king’s army, and wants to learn as much as he can, so that, if he ever gets with his men into such a mess as Braddock tumbled into, he will know what to do with them.”

“All right, captain!  We will do our best for him.  It’s risky sort of business ours for a greenhorn, but if he is anyways teachable, we will soon make a man of him.”

The speaker was a wiry, active man of some forty years old, with a weatherbeaten face, and a keen gray eye.  Jonathan, his comrade, was a head taller, with broad shoulders, powerful limbs, and a quiet but good-tempered face.

“That’s so, isn’t it, Jonathan?” Nat asked.

Jonathan nodded.  He was not a man of many words.

“Have you ever been in a canoe before?” Nat inquired.

“Never,” James said; “but I am accustomed to boats of all sorts, and can handle an oar fairly.”