and under arms.

Towards evening, the troops on the island broke up their camp, and,
leaving a detachment of marines to hold the post, the brigades of
Townshend and Murray, three thousand strong, embarked after nightfall
in the boats of the fleet, and landed a little below the Montmorenci,
At daybreak, they climbed the heights, and, routing a body of Canadians
and Indians who opposed them, gained the plateau and began to intrench
themselves there.

A company of rangers, supported by the regulars, was sent into the
neighbouring forests; to prevent the parties from cutting bushes for
the fascines, to explore the bank of the Montmorenci, and, if possible,
to discover a ford across the river.

Levis, with his aide-de-camp, a Jacobite Scotchman named Johnston, was
watching the movements of Wolfe from the heights above the gorge. Levis
believed that no ford existed, but Johnston found a man who had, only
that morning, crossed. A detachment was at once sent to the place, with
orders to intrench themselves, and Levis posted eleven hundred
Canadians, under Repentigny, close by in support.

Four hundred Indians passed the ford, and discovered the English
detachment in the forest, and Langlade, their commander, recrossed the
river, and told Repentigny that there was a body of English, in the
forest, who might be destroyed if he would cross at once with his
Canadians. Repentigny sent to Levis, and Levis to Vaudreuil, then three
or four miles distant.

Before Vaudreuil arrived on the spot, the Indians became impatient and
attacked the rangers; and drove them back, with loss, upon the
regulars, who stood their ground, and repulsed the assailants. The
Indians, however, carried thirty-six scalps across the ford.

If Repentigny had advanced when first called upon, and had been
followed by Levis with his whole command, the English might have
suffered a very severe check, for the Canadians were as much superior
to the regulars, in the forest, as the regulars to the Canadians in the
open.

Vaudreuil called a council of war, but he and Montcalm agreed not to
attack the English, who were, on their part, powerless to injure them.
Wolfe's position on the heights was indeed a dangerous one. A third of
his force was six miles away, on the other side of the Saint Lawrence,
and the detachment on the island was separated from each by a wide arm
of the river. Any of the three were liable to be attacked and
overpowered, before the others co