d manner and
brusque, independent tone. He heard him to the end, but gave an
evasive reply, and sent out an engineer on his own account to
survey the French position, and bring him word what was his
opinion.

This worthy made his survey, and came back full of confidence.

"The rampart is but a hastily-constructed breastwork of felled
trees; it should be easily carried by assault," he reported, full
of careless confidence. "A good bayonet charge, resolutely
conducted, is all that is needed, and we shall be in the fort
before night."

The soldiers cheered aloud when they heard the news. They were
filled with valour and eagerness, in spite of the death of their
beloved leader. It seemed as though his spirit inspired them with
ardent desire to show what they could do; although generalship,
alas! had perished with the young Brigadier, who had fallen at such
an untimely moment.

The Rangers looked at one another with grim faces. They would not
speak a word to dishearten the troops; but they knew, far better
than the raw levies or the English regulars could do, the nature of
the obstruction to be encountered.

"A bayonet charge by soldiers full of valour is no light thing,"
said Pringle to the Ranger, as they stood in the evening light
talking together. "Resolute men have done wonders before now in
such a charge, and why not we tomorrow?"

"Have you seen the abattis?" asked Rogers, in his grim and brusque
fashion.

"No," answered Pringle; "I have only heard it described by those
who have."

"Come, then, and look at it before it be dark," was Rogers' reply;
and he, together with Stark, led Fritz and Pringle and Roche along
a narrow forest pathway which the Rangers were engaged in widening
and improving, ready for the morrow's march, until he was able to
show them, from a knoll of rising ground, the nature of the
fortification they were to attack upon the morrow.

The French had shown no small skill in the building of this
breastwork, which ran along a ridge of high ground behind the fort
itself, and commanded the approach towards it from the land side.
The whole forest in the immediate vicinity had been felled. It bore
the appearance of a tract of ground through which a cyclone has
whirled its way. Great numbers of the trees had been dragged up to
form the rampart, but there were hundreds of others, as well as
innumerable roots and stumps, lugs and heads, lying in confusion
all around; and Rogers, pointing toward