ed a fairer scene than that presented by the
little wilderness settlement of Detroit on the sixth of May, 1763. All
nature was rejoicing in the advent of spring and donning its livery of
green. The broad river, flowing southward with a mighty volume of
water from four inland seas of which it formed the sole outlet, was
lined as far as the eye could reach with the white houses and fertile
fields of French farmers. From these, spirals of blue smoke curled
peacefully, and the voices of cattle answered each other in morning
greetings. A darker mass of buildings on the western bank denoted the
palisaded village in which dwelt the British garrison, their wives and
children, and some fifty fur traders, with their Canadian employees.
The houses within the palisades, about one hundred in number, were
mostly low, wooden structures, roofed with bark or thatch. The village
was square in form, and while one side opened on the river, the other
three were enclosed by wooden walls, twenty-five feet in height, with
log bastions at the corners, and a blockhouse over each of the three
gateways. Several pieces of light artillery were mounted on the
bastions, and anchored in the river lay the armed schooners _Beaver_
and _Gladwyn_. At some distance from the fort, both up and down the
river, rose the smoke of populous Indian villages, for all the natives
of that section were in from their winter hunting, and gathered at this
point for trade. Over the placid waters light canoes occasionally
darted from bank to bank. A boat brigade, bound for the far north, was
just starting from the fort, and the Canadian voyageurs, gay with
fringes, beads, and crimson sashes, caused the morning air to ring with
a tuneful chorus as boat after boat shot away and stemmed the current
with lusty oars.

Not far from the point of this noisy embarkation was another, though
much less ostentatious scene of departure and leave-taking. In the
stern of a birch canoe, paddle in hand and evidently impatient to be
off, sat one of Rogers' buckskin-clad rangers, who was about to revisit
his distant New Hampshire home, for the first time in three years.
Near by, on the strand, stood two men, both tall and possessed of a
military bearing. One, who wore the undress uniform of an officer, was
elderly and white-haired, while the other, slender, and clad much as
was the ranger in the canoe, was in the first flush of splendid young
manhood. As these two stood hand in han