inding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had
been brought, toward the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian
runner, who also bore an urgent request from Munro, the commander of
a work on the shore of the "holy lake," for a speedy and powerful
reinforcement. It has already been mentioned that the distance between
these two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which
originally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the
passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been traveled by the
son of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment
of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting
of a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to
one of these forest-fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the
other that of Fort Edward, calling each after a favorite prince of the
reigning family. The veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with
a regiment of regulars and a few provincials; a force really by far
too small to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was
leading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however,
lay General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern
provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the
several detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed
nearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising
Frenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army
but little superior in numbers.

But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and
men appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable
antagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their
march, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du
Quesne, and striking a blow on their advance.

After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a
rumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the
margin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the
fort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to
depart, with the dawn, for William Henry, the post at the northern
extremity of the portage. That which at first was only rumor,
soon became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters of the
commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this
service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All