e were seven
such; and more were afterwards added, forming a battalion dispersed on
various service, but all under the orders of Robert Rogers, with the
rank of major.[458] These rangers wore a sort of woodland uniform, which
varied in the different companies, and were armed with smooth-bore guns,
loaded with buckshot, bullets, or sometimes both.

[Footnote 455: A large engraved portrait of him, nearly at full length,
is before me, printed at London in 1776.]

[Footnote 456: Rogers, _Journals, Introduction_ (1765).]

[Footnote 457: _Provincial Papers of New Hampshire_, VI. 364.
_Correspondence of Gage, 1766. N.Y. Col. Docs._, VII. 990. Caleb Stark,
_Memoir and Correspondence of John Stark_, 386.]

[Footnote 458: Rogers, _Journals. Report of the Adjutant-General of New
Hampshire_ (1866), II. 158, 159.]

The best of them were commonly employed on Lake George; and nothing can
surpass the adventurous hardihood of their lives. Summer and winter, day
and night, were alike to them. Embarked in whaleboats or birch-canoes,
they glided under the silent moon or in the languid glare of a
breathless August day, when islands floated in dreamy haze, and the hot
air was thick with odors of the pine; or in the bright October, when the
jay screamed from the woods, squirrels gathered their winter hoard, and
congregated blackbirds chattered farewell to their summer haunts; when
gay mountains basked in light, maples dropped leaves of rustling gold,
sumachs glowed like rubies under the dark green of the unchanging
spruce, and mossed rocks with all their painted plumage lay double in
the watery mirror: that festal evening of the year, when jocund Nature
disrobes herself, to wake again refreshed in the joy of her undying
spring. Or, in the tomb-like silence of the winter forest, with breath
frozen on his beard, the ranger strode on snow-shoes over the spotless
drifts; and, like Duerer's knight, a ghastly death stalked ever at his
side. There were those among them for whom this stern life had a
fascination that made all other existence tame.

Rogers and his men had been in active movement since midwinter. In
January they skated down Lake George, passed Ticonderoga, hid themselves
by the forest-road between that post and Crown Point, intercepted two
sledges loaded with provisions, and carried the drivers to Fort William
Henry. In February they climbed a hill near Crown Point and made a plan
of the works; then lay in ambush by the road from