Faster and faster the boat glided along, but the scouts were still far from rowing their hardest.  For, although the whole of the men were accustomed to the use of the paddle, the other boats would be unable to keep up with that driven by the practised arms of the leaders of the file.  After paddling for another hour and a half, the scout stopped.

“We are far enough away now,” Nat said.  “There ain’t no chance in the world of any redskins being in the woods, so far out as this.  The hope of scalps will have taken them all down close to the fort.  We can land safely, now.”

The word was passed down the line of canoes, the boats glided through the screen of foliage, and the men landed.

“Better pull the canoes ashore, captain.  If we left them in the water, one might break adrift and float out beyond the trees.  Some redskin or other would make it out, and we should have a troop of them on our trail, before an hour had passed.”

“There’s no marching through the forest now, Nat,” James said.  “I can’t see my own hand close to my face.”

“That’s so, captain, and we’d best halt till daylight.  I could make my way along, easy enough, but some of these fellows would be pitching over stumps, or catching their feet in a creeper, and, like enough, letting off their pieces as they went down.  We may just as well stay where we are.  They ain’t likely to miss us, even in the camp, and sartin the redskins can’t have known we have gone.  So there’s no chance whatever of pursuit, and there ain’t nothing to be gained by making haste.”

James gave the order.  The men felt about, till each found a space of ground, sufficiently large to lie down upon, and soon all were asleep except the two scouts, who said, at once, that they would watch by turns till daylight.

As soon as it was sufficiently light to see in the forest, the band were again in motion.  They made due east, until they crossed the trail leading from the head of Lake Champlain to Fort Edward; kept on for another hour, and then, turning to the south, made in the direction of Albany, for it would have been dangerous to approach Fort Edward, round which the Indians were sure to be scattered thickly.

For the first two hours after starting, the distant roar of the guns had gone on unceasingly, then it suddenly stopped.

“They have hoisted the white flag,” Edwards said.  “It is all over.  Thank God, we are well out of it!  I don’t mind fighting, Walsham, but to be massacred by those Indians is a hideous idea.”

“I am glad we are out of it too,” James agreed; “but I cannot think that Montcalm, with so large a force of French regulars at his command, will allow those fiendish Indians to massacre the prisoners.”