d into the ground in
peace. On May 19th Governor Tryon sent a letter to the Grants proposing
a conference and promising amnesty to all those who had taken an active
part in the raids of the Green Mountain Boys excepting Ethan Allen, Seth
Warner, Baker and Robert Cochran. The King had commanded that New York
do nothing further toward surveying or settling the lands east of Lake
Champlain and the Twenty-Mile Line until the difficulty could be
properly adjusted, and Tryon promised that the land-grabbers should be
kept away from the Grants.

The farmers were delighted with this letter. They had been living in
continual fear of dispossession since the first attack on the
Breckenridge farm in '69. Now they felt that they would be free to
follow the peaceful pursuits of their calling and began to improve their
possessions, believing that, after all, the right would prevail. None
were more pleased at this turn of affairs than the widow Harding and
Enoch. Bryce, it must be confessed, felt a little disappointed that he
had seen no active service; but they were all happy in their work and
the Harding place bade fair to be one of the most profitable farms in
the township that year.

The boys labored well and after the second corn hoeing in August the
work was so far along that Enoch was able to accompany 'Siah Bolderwood
on a hunting trip. The old ranger, lacking any regular abiding place of
his own, often visited the Hardings and helped in the work of the farm.
But he was a wanderer by nature and could not stay in one place long at
a time. So, being off to the northward, the widow allowed Enoch to join
him for a week or two.

It was not wholly game that Bolderwood was after, however. At least, not
game for present killing. He was mapping out his next winter's campaign
against the wild creatures of the forest. His strings of traps and
dead-falls would be laid along the route which he and his young comrade
traversed. Reaching the southern extremity of Lake Champlain Bolderwood
found a canoe which, well hidden in a hollow log--all that remained of a
monster king of the woodland--had lain untouched since his last visit to
the lake. In this light bark they set sail upon that beautiful body of
water on the shores of which the French and English had so often met in
battle. It has been well said that the Champlain Valley was the school
grounds of the early colonists, and that here were largely unfolded the
elements of character which b