""Deed, mon," said Hector, "a more wicked pair of eyes I never saw."
Martin raised his gun and fired at the bob-cat; but though he wounded it, the cat jumped at us, pulling the clog after it. McKinstry gave it another shot, which knocked it over. It died hard.
When the animal was dead, we examined it. It was over three feet long and about two feet high. Its tail was about six inches long. Its head was about as big as a half-peck measure. Its ears were pointed, with little black ta.s.sels at the ends. It had whiskers on its cheeks and smellers like a cat. The fur was gray, except that on the belly, which was white.
Hector was looking at its claws, which were nearly two inches long.
"McKinstry, what do these animals eat?"
"Well, if you were alone here in the woods, I think likely they"d eat a Scotchman."
"I was a thinking that same thing myself."
We skinned the bob-cat, and cut off some of his flesh with which to bait the trap, and then we carried the trap back, and set and baited it again.
We found nothing in our other traps till we came to the spot where the seventh one had been, and that had disappeared.
We followed the trail, and finally saw the cat on a stump among some bushes. McKinstry shot it. It jumped at us, but fell dead.
It was like the other, and weighed something over thirty pounds, though it looked much heavier on account of its long fur.
We skinned it, and set and baited the trap again. The last trap had not been touched.
As we were going back, Amos said: "What a p-pity Davy Fiske c-couldn"t have been with us. He"d have talked of this all his life."
"Well, the only difference is, that Amos Locke will, instead."
Just before we left the pond, we saw that an animal had turned in on our tracks, and had followed them up toward the camp.
[Sidenote: A FISHER]
"That"s a black cat or fisher," said Martin. "His tracks look like a little child"s. I"d like to get him, for a black cat"s fur is worth something."
The tracks kept along with ours, and when we got to the camp, we found that he had eaten up one of three partridges we had left there.
"I"ll fix him," said McKinstry, and the next day he brought up a trap and set it near the hut, and baited it with partridge. The following day, while we were away, the black cat came again, pa.s.sed by our trap and bait, and though there was a fire burning, went to the hut and ate some baked beans which were there. He made two more calls on us, but scorned the trap.
On the second day out, Martin shot a deer, so that we had plenty of fresh meat; and we cut holes in the ice on the pond and caught pickerel.
When the week was up, we had eight bob-cats and an otter. We packed our traps and skins on the sled, started back, and reached Fort Edward in the evening.
Edmund had been unable to go with us on this trip, as Major Rogers was at Albany, and Edmund"s duties as adjutant kept him in camp.
CHAPTER XIV
A SCOUTING EXPEDITION IN THE DEAD OF WINTER
One day about the end of February, Edmund came out of Rogers"s hut, and said:--
"Rogers is going on a scout, boys, down to Ticonderoga, and will take your company. Johnson is going to send over fifty Mohawk Indians under Captain Lotridge, and there"ll be a number of regulars, too. There will be about three hundred and fifty men in the party, so that there won"t be much chance of your being treated as we were in our first expedition.
An engineer lieutenant named Bhreems is going with you, and will make sketches of the fort. You are to try and take some prisoners to bring back information."
We set out on the third of March, 1759.
The snow was deep, and the Rangers and Indians were on snowshoes. The regulars followed us, plodding along heavily through the snow. We reached Halfway Brook that night, and the next day got over to Lake George. We waited till it was dark and then marched down the lake to the First Narrows, which we reached about two in the morning.
It was bitter cold, and already some of the men were so badly frost-bitten that twenty of them had been sent back to Fort Edward.
"Now, boys," said Rogers, "we must keep under cover all day and hide till night comes on. You can"t have any fires. Get into sheltered spots and huddle together to keep warm, and shift round now and then to give every one a fair chance."
We huddled together like sheep and covered ourselves with our blankets.
Occasionally we rose, stamped our feet and beat our hands, and then crouched down again.
When it was dark we put on our rackets and set out again. By daybreak we reached the landing-place. Rogers sent scouts to see if any of the enemy were out. They reported that there were two parties of them cutting wood on the east side of Lake Champlain.
[Sidenote: FRENCH WOODCUTTERS]
Rogers now marched with fifty Rangers and as many Indians down to the isthmus, and we went up the same hill from which John Stark and Engineer Clark made their observations the year before. Everything looked different in the winter. We were acting as a guard to Mr. Bhreems, who went up to the crest of the hill and made sketches of the fort. Amos and I crept along the sidehill to where a few Indians and Rangers were watching some Frenchmen at work on the other side of the lake. They were cutting down trees and chopping them up into firewood.
"I suppose we"ve got to go over and capture some of those men, Amos."
"Yes; seems a p-pity, too, to attack men cutting wood. It puts me in mind of home. That"s what I"d be doing now if I were there."
Rogers left a few scouts to watch these men, and the rest of us returned with the engineer.
The weather grew colder and colder. All this time we could have no fires. We watched each other to see if an ear or a nose were getting frost-bitten. I told Amos that his right ear looked pretty white, and that he had better see if there were any feeling in it.
He took off his mittens and pinched it.
"It don"t hurt a bit. There isn"t a mite of feeling."
I gave it a good rubbing, and he soon had feeling enough in it. "That comes from wearing such long ears, my boy."
His toes felt numb, and he went to a place that was bare of snow, took off his rackets, and stamped to get some life into his feet.
The regulars suffered much more than we did, for they had no rackets, and had been wallowing along in the deep snow. So many were frost-bitten that Rogers sent all the regulars back to Sabbath Day Point, and thirty Rangers with them.
Amos went with this party. They were told to build fires to keep themselves warm, and to wait for us.
[Sidenote: THEY CAPTURE SOME PRISONERS]
At three in the morning the rest of us started out, Rogers, three lieutenants, one regular, and forty Rangers, and Captain Lotridge with forty-six Mohawk Indians.
We went southward to avoid being seen, and crossed South Bay about eight miles south of the fort. Here we came upon the trail of a large party of Indians who had gone toward Fort Edward; and Rogers sent off a couple of scouts to notify the men at the fort.