ner,
and killed or captured nearly all. The other bands eluded their
pursuers, turned southeastward, reached the Connecticut, some here, some
there, and, giddy with fatigue and hunger, toiled wearily down the wild
and lonely stream to the appointed rendezvous at the mouth of the
Amonoosuc.

[Footnote 751: Rogers says "about six hundred." Other accounts say six
or seven hundred. The late Abbe Maurault, missionary of the St. Francis
Indians, and their historian, adopts the latter statement, though it is
probably exaggerated.]

This was the place to which Rogers had requested that provisions might
be sent; and the hope of finding them there had been the breath of life
to the famished wayfarers. To their horror, the place was a solitude.
There were fires still burning, but those who made them were gone.
Amherst had sent Lieutenant Stephen up the river from Charlestown with
an abundant supply of food; but finding nobody at the Amonoosuc, he had
waited there two days, and then returned, carrying the provisions back
with him; for which outrageous conduct he was expelled from the service.
"It is hardly possible," says Rogers, "to describe our grief and
consternation." Some gave themselves up to despair. Few but their
indomitable chief had strength to go father. There was scarcely any
game, and the barren wilderness yielded no sustenance but a few lily
bulbs and the tubers of the climbing plant called in New England the
ground-nut. Leaving his party to these miserable resources, and
promising to send then relief within ten days, Rogers made a raft of dry
pine logs, and drifted on it down the stream, with Captain Ogden, a
ranger, and one of the captive Indian boys. They were stopped on the
second day by rapids, and gained the shore with difficulty. At the foot
of the rapids, while Ogden and the ranger went in search of squirrels,
Rogers set himself to making another raft; and having no strength to use
the axe, he burned down the trees, which he then divided into logs by
the same process. Five days after leaving his party he reached the first
English settlement, Charlestown, or "Number Four," and immediately sent
a canoe with provisions to the relief of the sufferers, following
himself with other canoes two days later. Most of the men were saved,
though some died miserably of famine and exhaustion. Of the few who had
been captured, we are told by French contemporary that they "became
victims of the fury of the Indian women," fro