hawked in the face;
he is now to be roasted alive. A dark forest is selected for the
sacrifice; stripped naked, he is bound to a tree, and the inflammable
brushwood piled around him. Savage voices sound his death-knell. Fire
is applied, when a sudden shower dampens the flame, to burst forth
again with renewed strength. Though securely fastened, the limbs of
the victim are left some liberty to shrink from the accursed heat. He
has thought his last thought of home, of wife and children, when the
desperate French partisan, Molang, the commander of the savage hordes,
hearing of the act, rushes upon the scene and rescues him from his
tormentors. Putnam is now restored to the guardianship of the Indian
chief by whom he had been captured, and from whom he was separated
during these hours of agony, when he had fallen into the hands of the
baser fellows of the tribe. The party now reach Ticonderoga, where
Putnam is delivered to Montcalm, and thence courteously conducted by a
French officer to Montreal.

There he found himself within reach of a benevolent American officer,
then a prisoner in the city, Colonel Peter Schuyler, who generously
ministered to his necessities, and who was instrumental in procuring
his release from the French commander, when he himself was exchanged
after the capture of Frontenac. Putnam, on his return home, gallantly
conducted through the wilderness the sorely tried Mrs. Howe and her
children, whose adventures in Indian captivity and among the French,
equal the inventive pages of romance.

The next year, in Amherst's great campaign, Putnam returned to
Montreal under better auspices. He was with that commander in his
onward movement, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and rendered
efficient service in the passage down the St. Lawrence, by his bravery
and ingenuity. When the fort of Oswegatchie was to be attacked, and
two armed vessels were in the way, he proposed to silence the latter
by driving wedges to hinder the movement of their rudders, and to
cross the abatis of the fortification by an attack from boats, armed
with long planks, which were to be let down when the vessels,
protected by fascines, were placed alongside of the work. A timely
surrender anticipated both of these expedients. The dying Wolfe had
conquered Canada at Quebec, making victory easy elsewhere in the
province. Montreal surrendered to the allied forces without a blow.
Putnam, it is recorded, availed himself of the opportunity t