found them, called his neighbors to his aid, carried them to his
own house, and after applying, with the utmost kindness, what simple
remedies he knew, went over to Quebec and told of the disaster.
Fortunately for themselves, the sufferers soon died.

[Footnote 821: _Murray to Amherst, 25 Jan. 1760_. Not, as some believed, by
a train laid by the French.]

December came, and brought the Canadian winter, with
its fierce light and cold, glaring snowfields, and piercing blasts
that scorch the cheek like a firebrand. The men were frost-bitten
as they dug away the dry, powdery drifts that the wind had piled
against the rampart. The sentries were relieved every hour; yet feet
and fingers were continually frozen. The clothing of the troops was
ill-suited to the climate, and, though stoves had been placed in the
guard and barrack rooms, the supply of fuel constantly fell short.
The cutting and dragging of wood was the chief task of the garrison
for many weeks. Parties of axemen, strongly guarded, were always at work in
the forest of Ste.-Foy, four or five miles from Quebec, and the
logs were brought to town on sledges dragged by the soldiers.
Eight of them were harnessed in pairs to each sledge; and as
there was always danger from Indians and bushrangers, every
man carried his musket slung at his back. The labor was prodigious;
for frequent snowstorms made it necessary again and again to beat a
fresh track through the drifts. The men bore their hardships with
admirable good humor; and once a party of them on their return, dragging
their load through the street, met a Canadian, also with a load of wood,
which was drawn by a team of dogs harnessed much like themselves. They
accosted them as yoke-fellows, comrades, and brothers; asked
them what allowance of pork and rum they got; and invited
them and their owner to mess at the regimental barracks.

The appearance of the troops on duty within the town, as
described by Knox, was scarcely less eccentric. "Our guards
on the grand parade make a most grotesque appearance in
their different dresses; and our inventions to guard us against
the extreme rigor of this climate are various beyond imagination.
The uniformity as well as nicety of the clean, methodical
soldier is buried in the rough, fur-wrought garb of the frozen
Laplander; and we rather resemble a masquerade than a body
of regular troops, insomuch that I have frequently been accosted
by my acquaintances, whom, though their vo