ascended
the frozen Merrimac, passed Lake Winnepesaukee, pushed nearly to the
White Mountains, and encamped on a branch of the upper Saco. Here they
killed a moose,--a timely piece of luck, for they were in danger of
starvation, and Lovewell had been compelled by want of food to send back
a good number of his men. The rest held their way, filing on snow-shoes
through the deathlike solitude that gave no sign of life except the
light track of some squirrel on the snow, and the brisk note of the
hardy little chickadee, or black-capped titmouse, so familiar to the
winter woods. Thus far the scouts had seen no human footprint; but on
the twentieth of February they found a lately abandoned wigwam, and,
following the snow-shoe tracks that led from it, at length saw smoke
rising at a distance out of the gray forest. The party lay close till
two o'clock in the morning; then cautiously approached, found one or
more wigwams, surrounded them, and killed all the inmates, ten in
number. They were warriors from Canada on a winter raid against the
borders. Lovewell and his men, it will be seen, were much like hunters
of wolves, catamounts, or other dangerous beasts, except that the chase
of this fierce and wily human game demanded far more hardihood and
skill.

They brought home the scalps in triumph, together with the blankets and
the new guns furnished to the slain warriors by their Canadian friends;
and Lovewell began at once to gather men for another hunt. The busy
season of the farmers was at hand, and volunteers came in less freely
than before. At the middle of April, however, he had raised a band of
forty-six, of whom he was the captain, with Farwell and Robbins as his
lieutenants. Though they were all regularly commissioned by the
governor, they were leaders rather than commanders, for they and their
men were neighbors or acquaintances on terms of entire social equality.
Two of the number require mention. One was Seth Wyman, of Woburn, an
ensign; and the other was Jonathan Frye, of Andover, the chaplain, a
youth of twenty-one, graduated at Harvard College in 1723, and now a
student of theology. Chaplain though he was, he carried a gun, knife,
and hatchet like the others, and not one of the party was more prompt to
use them.

They began their march on April 15. A few days afterwards, one William
Cummings, of Dunstable, became so disabled by the effects of a wound
received from Indians some time before, that he could not keep o