In the morning they were about to start, and Rogers ordered the canoes to be hauled up and hidden among the bushes, where, having done their work, they would for the present be abandoned, to be recovered and made useful on some future occasion.

The men charged with the work gave a sudden exclamation when they reached the canoes.

“What is that?” Rogers said angrily.  “Do you want to bring all the redskins in the forest upon us?”

“The canoes are all damaged,” one of the scouts said, coming up to him.

There was a general movement to the canoes, which were lying on the bank a few yards’ distance from the water’s edge.  Every one of them had been rendered useless.  The thin birch bark had been gashed and slit, pieces had been cut out, and not one of them had escaped injury or was fit to take the water.  Beyond a few low words, and exclamations of dismay, not a word was spoken as the band gathered round the canoes.

“Who were on the watch on this side?” Rogers asked.

“Nat and Jonathan took the first half of the night,” one of the scouts said.  “Williams and myself relieved them.”

As all four were men of the greatest skill and experience, Rogers felt sure that no neglect or carelessness on their part could have led to the disaster.

“Did any of you see any passing boats, or hear any sound on the lake?”

The four men who had been on guard replied in the negative.

“I will swear no one landed near the canoes,” Nat said.  “There was a glimmer on the water all night; a canoe could not have possibly come near the bank, anywheres here, without our seeing it.”

“Then he must have come from the land side,” Rogers said.  “Some skulking Indian must have seen us out on the lake, and have hidden up when we landed.  He may have been in a tree overhead all the time, and, directly the canoes were hauled up, he may have damaged them and made off.

“There is no time to be lost, lads.  It is five hours since we landed.  If he started at once the redskins may be all round us now.  It is no question now of our scouting round the French fort, it is one of saving our scalps.”

“How could it have been done?” James Walsham asked Nat, in a low tone.  “We were all sleeping within a few yards of the canoes, and some of the men were close to them.  I should have thought we must have heard it.”

“Heard it!” the hunter said contemptuously; “why, a redskin would make no more noise in cutting them holes and gashes, than you would in cutting a hunk of deer’s flesh for your dinner.  He would lie on the ground, and wriggle from one to another like an eel; but I reckon he didn’t begin till the camp was still.  The canoes wasn’t hauled up till we had sarched the woods, as we thought, and then we was moving about close by them till we lay down.