forward to each other through the dark.
Sometimes, too, though strictest orders are issued against such ruffian
warfare by both Van Rensselaer and Brock, the sentries chance shots at
each other through the dark. Drums beat reveille at four in the
morning, and the rub-a-dub-dub of Queenston Heights is echoed by
rat-tat-too of Lewiston, though river mist hides the armies from each
other in the morning. Iron baskets filled with oiled bark are used as
telegraph signals, and one may guess how, when the light flared up of a
night on the Canadian heights, scouts carried word to the officers on
the American side. One may guess, too, the effect on Van Rensselaer's
big untrained army, when, with the sun aglint on scarlet uniform, they
saw their fellow-countrymen of Detroit marched prisoners between
British lines along the heights of Queenston opposite Lewiston. Rage,
depression, shame, knew no bounds; and the army was unable to vent
anger in heroic attack, for England had repealed her embargo laws, and
when Brock came back from Detroit he found that an armistice had been
arranged, and both sides had been ordered to suspend hostilities till
instructions came from the governments. The truce, it may be added,
was only an excuse to enable both sides to complete preparations for
the war. In a few weeks ball and bomb were again singing their shrill
songs in mid-air.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON
THE NIAGARA FRONTIER]

Brock's victory demoralized the rabble under the American Van
Rensselaer. Desertions increased daily, and discipline was so
notoriously bad Van Rensselaer and his staff dared not punish desertion
for fear of the army--as one of them put it--"falling to pieces." Van
Rensselaer saw that he must strike, and strike at once, and strike
successfully, or he would not have any army left at all. Two thousand
Pennsylvanians had joined him; and on October 9, at one in the morning,
Lieutenant Elliott led one hundred men with muffled paddles from the
American side to two Canadian ships lying anchored off Fort Erie. One
was the {344} brig captured from Hull at Detroit, the other a sloop
belonging to the Northwest Fur Company, loaded with peltries. Before
the British were well awake, Elliott had boarded decks, captured the
fur ship with forty prisoners, and was turning her guns on the other
ship when Port Erie suddenly awakened with a belch of cannon shot. The
Americans cut the cab