had happened. The next minute he was bending down over the
yawning hole, and had put his long, strong arm through it into the
icy water beneath.

He touched nothing. The hapless man had sunk to rise no more. Once
sucked beneath the deep waters of the frozen lake, exhausted as he
was, there was no hope for him. Charles cut and hacked at the ice
blocks, regardless of his own personal safety; and after long
labour he succeeded in moving some of them, and in dragging out the
lifeless corpse, already frozen stiff, of the man he had sworn to
slay.

The French were flying over the frozen ice, the Rangers in pursuit.
They came upon the strange spectacle, and stopped short in amaze. A
dead man lay upon the ice of the lake where it was broken and
dangerous, his dead face turned up to the moonlight, his hands
clinched and stiff and frozen. Beside the corpse sat Charles, his
glassy eyes fixed upon the dead face, himself almost as stiff and
stark.

They came up and spoke to him; but he only pointed to the corpse.

"That is he--that is he!" he cried hoarsely. "I saw him, and he saw
me. We fought, and he fled. I have been running after him over ice
and snow for years and years. He is dead now--dead, dead, dead! The
Lord has delivered him into my hand. My work is done!"

He stood up suddenly, threw up his arms, and then fell heavily
forward face downwards upon the ice.

When they lifted him up and carried him within the fort, it was to
find that Charles Angell the Ranger was dead.

Book 3: Disaster.

Chapter 1: A Tale Of Woe.

The intrepidity of the officer in command, and the alertness and
courage of the Rangers, had saved Fort William Henry from one
threatened disaster.

When the French had fairly retreated, after having been forced to
content themselves with the burning of the boats and the unfinished
sloop and certain of the surrounding huts and buildings, the
English found out from their prisoners how great their peril had
been. For the French force sent against them had been a strong one,
well equipped, and hopeful of surprising the place and carrying it
by a coup de main.

Failing in this, they had made a show of hostility, but had not
really attempted anything very serious. The season was against
anything like a settled siege, and they had retreated quickly to
their own quarters.

But this attack was only to be the prelude to one on a very
different scale already being organized at headquarters. The
En