little trenches for
themselves, in which they wormed their way towards the rampart, and now
and then picked off an artillery-man, not without loss on their own
side. On the afternoon of the fifth, Montcalm invited them to a council,
gave them belts of wampum, and mildly remonstrated with them. "Why
expose yourselves without necessity? I grieve bitterly over the losses
that you have met, for the least among you is precious to me. No doubt
it is a good thing to annoy the English; but that is not the main point.
You ought to inform me of everything the enemy is doing, and always
keep parties on the road between the two forts." And he gently hinted
that their place was not in his camp, but in that of Levis, where
missionaries were provided for such of them as were Christians, and food
and ammunition for them all. They promised, with excellent docility, to
do everything he wished, but added that there was something on their
hearts. Being encouraged to relieve themselves of the burden, they
complained that they had not been consulted as to the management of the
siege, but were expected to obey orders like slaves. "We know more about
fighting in the woods than you," said their orator; "ask our advice, and
you will be the better for it."[514]

[Footnote 514: Bougainville, _Journal_.]

Montcalm assured them that if they had been neglected, it was only
through the hurry and confusion of the time; expressed high appreciation
of their talents for bush-fighting, promised them ample satisfaction,
and ended by telling them that in the morning they should hear the big
guns. This greatly pleased them, for they were extremely impatient for
the artillery to begin. About sunrise the battery of the left opened
with eight heavy cannon and a mortar, joined, on the next morning, by
the battery of the right, with eleven pieces more. The fort replied with
spirit. The cannon thundered all day, and from a hundred peaks and crags
the astonished wilderness roared back the sound. The Indians were
delighted. They wanted to point the guns; and to humor them, they were
now and then allowed to do so. Others lay behind logs and fallen trees,
and yelled their satisfaction when they saw the splinters fly from the
wooden rampart.

Day after day the weary roar of the distant cannonade fell on the ears
of Webb in his camp at Fort Edward. "I have not yet received the least
reinforcement," he writes to Loudon; "this is the disagreeable situation
we are at pr