of
cowhide,--this grave costume was usually brightened by a belt or sash of
the liveliest colours. The country-women had to content themselves with
the same coarse homespuns, which they wore in short, full skirts. But
they got the gay colours which they loved in kerchiefs for their necks
and shoulders.

In war the regulars were sharply distinguished from those of the British
army by their uniforms. The white of the House of Bourbon was the colour
that marked their regiments, as scarlet marked those of the British. The
militia and wood-rangers fought in their ordinary dress,--or,
occasionally, with the object of terrifying their enemies, put on the
war-paint and eagle-quills of the Indians. The muskets of the day were
the heavy weapons known as flint-locks. When the trigger was pulled the
flint came down sharply on a piece of steel, and the spark, falling into
a shallow "pan" of powder called the "priming," ignited the charge. The
regulars carried bayonets on the ends of their muskets, but the militia
and rangers had little use for these weapons. They depended on their
marksmanship, which was deadly. The regulars fired breast high in the
direction of their enemy, trusting to the steadiness and closeness of
their fire; but the colonials did not waste their precious bullets and
powder in this way. They had learned from the Indians, whom they could
beat at their own game, to fight from behind trees, rocks, or hillocks,
to load and fire lying down, and to surprise their enemies by stealing
noiselessly through the underbrush. At close quarters they fought, like
the Indians, with knife and hatchet, both of which were carried in their
belts. From the ranger's belt, too, when on the march, hung the leathern
bag of bullets, and the inevitable tobacco-pouch; while from his neck
swung a powder-horn, often richly carved, together with his cherished
pipe inclosed in its case of skin. Very often, however, the ranger
spared himself the trouble of a pipe by scooping a bowl in the back of
his tomahawk and fitting it with a hollow handle. Thus the same
implement became both the comfort of his leisure and the torment of his
enemies. In winter, when the Canadians, expert in the use of the
snow-shoe and fearless of the cold, did much of their fighting, they
wore thick peaked hoods over their heads, and looked like a procession
of friars wending through the silent forest on some errand of piety or
mercy. Their hands were covered by thick mit