ke Champlain and the outlet of Lake George. A
half-mile to the north of the fort, a little ridge runs across the
peninsula. As we looked down from the hill, we saw the French hard at
work on a strong breastwork of logs which they had nearly completed. At
either end of it was low, marshy ground, difficult to pass. The
breastwork zigzagged along the ridge in such a manner that if troops
attacked it, the French could rake them with grapeshot, and it was too
high to climb over.

"How are we going to get over that breastwork, Edmund? There's no slope
to it, and we can't reach within two feet of the top."

"Oh, we'll knock it to pieces with cannon, and then we can rush over it.
Our officers will know what to do."

"There won't be any rushing through that mass of sharpened stakes that
they have driven into the ground in front of the works."

"No. That's so. There's a regular thicket of them with the points
sticking out toward us. They'll have to be cut off or torn up, and the
French will be raking us all the time."

"See those Canadians cutting down the forest just beyond the stakes. The
tops of the trees fall outward, and the branches are matted together. If
Abercrombie thinks his army can march up to the breastwork, he's greatly
mistaken."

"Yes; it will be a piece of work to scramble through those branches; and
then comes the abattis of stakes; and then a wall eight feet high.
Montcalm knows his business, Ben. I wish he were on our side. We shall
have no easy task. It looks tough to-day, and it will be worse
to-morrow."

[Sidenote: THEY INSPECT TICONDEROGA]

"We shall lose a good many men. Possibly we may go through the swamp, at
the ends of the breastwork."

"Where's Amos?"

We looked round and saw Amos, with his back turned toward us. He seemed
deeply interested.

"What is it, Amos? What are you looking at?"

"I tell you, boys, I think this hill's about the best place for
p-pigeons I ever saw. There's a good spot for a booth, and that little
tree would make a fine standard for a p-pigeon p-pole."

"Hang your pigeons! You may be dead to-morrow. Look down the lake,
Edmund. See the reenforcements of French regulars with their white coats
rowing up Champlain. They'll be at Fort Ti in half an hour."

We were told to get ready to go back. I overheard Mr. Clark say:--

"Oh, we can take a place like that by an assault with small arms. We'll
give them a taste of the bayonet. We don't need cannon."

Stark repli