rail.
Leaving half his men to guard the baggage, Dieskau bade fifteen hundred
picked men follow him on swiftest march with provisions in haversack
for only eight days. September 8, 10 A.M., the marchers advance
through the woods on Johnson's fort, when suddenly they learn that
their scout has lied,--_Johnson himself is still at the fort_. Instead
of five hundred are four thousand English. Advancing along the trail
V-shape, regulars in the middle, Canadians and Indians on each side,
the French come on a company of five hundred English wagoners. In the
wild melee of shouts the English retreat in a rabble. "Pursue! March!
Fire! Force the place!" yells Dieskau, dashing forward sword in hand,
thinking to follow so closely on the heels of the rabble that he can
enter the English fort before the enemy know; but his Indians have
forsaken him, and Johnson's scouts have forewarned the approach of the
French. Instead of ambushing {239} the English, Dieskau finds his own
army ambushed. He had sneered at the un-uniformed plowboys of the
English. "The more there are, the more we shall kill," he had boasted;
but now he discovers that the rude bushwhackers, "who fought like boys
in the morning, at noon fought like men, and by afternoon fought like
devils." Their sharpshooters kept up a crash of fire to the fore, and
fifteen hundred doubled on the rear of his army, "folding us up," he
reported, "like a pack of cards." Dieskau fell, shot in the leg and in
the knee, and a bullet struck the cartridge box of the servant who was
washing out the wounds.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY MAP OF THE REGION OF LAKE GEORGE]

"Lay my telescope and coat by me, and go!" ordered Dieskau. "This is
as good a deathbed as anyplace. Go!" he thundered, seeing his second
officer hesitate. "Don't you see you are needed? Go and sound a
retreat."

A third shot penetrated the wounded commander's bladder. Lying alone,
propped against a tree, he heard the drums rolling a retreat, when one
of the enemy jumped from the woods with pointed pistol.

"Scoundrel!" roared the dauntless Dieskau; "dare to shoot a man
weltering in his blood." The fellow proved to be a Frenchman who had
long ago deserted to the English, and he muttered {240} out some excuse
about shooting the devil before the devil shot him; but when he found
out who Dieskau was, he had him carried carefully to Johnson's tent,
where every courtesy was bestowed upon the wounded commander. Jo