e number of able-bodied soldiers was considerably reduced. Wolfe
visited those in hospital, and spoke kind and cheering words to
them. He knew what it was to be laid aside from active service, and
how hard inactivity was when there was work to be done.

The camp on the Montmorency was broken up first. Wolfe wanted his
soldiers elsewhere, and he thought it no bad move to take this
step, as the French would probably think it the first move in the
evacuation of the whole position. Montcalm, indeed, would have
fallen upon them in the rear and inflicted heavy damage, if Moncton
at Point Levi had not seen the danger, and sent a number of men in
boats to make a feint of attacking Beauport; upon which the troops
were hastily recalled.

All was activity and secret industry in the English lines, A whole
fleet of baggage boats was laden and smuggled past the town guns
into the upper river; more craft followed, till quite an armament
lay in that wider reach above; and yet the French were not
permitted to have any exact notion as to what was to be done, nor
that any serious attack was meditated in that direction.

Wolfe himself was taken up the river in one of the vessels. He was
still weak and suffering, but he could no longer give any thought
to his own condition.

"I can rest when the battle is fought," he said to Julian, who
would fain have bidden him spare himself more; and it seemed to his
friend as though there were more in those words than met the ear.

News was daily brought in of the strength of the French position.
Montcalm, very uneasy at the action of the English fleet, sent as
many reinforcements as he could spare to man the heights and gorges
of the upper river. Batteries were planted, and every step taken to
guard against the danger of attack. Rain and wind hindered the
English from putting their plan into immediate execution, and the
men suffered a good deal from close crowding on the transports, and
from various brushes with the enemy which enlivened the monotony of
those days of waiting.

Wolfe's eyes were everywhere. He was in the Admiral's vessel, and
although sometimes hardly able to drag himself upon deck, he would
note with all his old keenness every nook and cranny in the
precipitous shores, every movement of the enemy, every natural
advantage which could possibly be made use of in his attempt.

All this time the ships were drifting to and fro with the tide from
the basin of the upper river, just a