magazine below this bastion was set on fire, and exploded with a terrific crash, killing the assailants almost to a man. In all,--killed, wounded, missing,--the assault cost Drummond's army nine hundred men. September proved a rainy month. Drummond's camp became almost a marsh, and the health of the troops compelled a move to higher ground. It was then the Americans sallied out in assault. Neither side could claim victory, but the skirmish cost each army more than five hundred men. Sir James Yeo now comes sailing up Lake Ontario with some of the sixteen thousand troops sent from England. The weather became unfavorable to movement on either side,--rain and sleet continuously. Drummond foresaw that the season would compel the abandonment of Fort Erie, and on November 5, a scout came in with word that the invaders had crossed to the American side and Fort Erie had been blown up. {378} While Drummond is fighting for the very life of Canada along the Niagara frontier, the war continues in desultory fashion elsewhere. Kentucky riflemen raid western Ontario from Detroit to Port Dover. Up on the lakes is a story of the war that reads like a page from border raiders. American fur traders destroy Sault Ste. Marie. Canadian fur traders retaliate by swooping on Mississippi fur posts. Out on the Pacific Coast an English gunboat has captured John Jacob Astor's fur post on the Columbia; and now in the fall of 1814 the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal are conveying from Astor's fort the furs, worth millions of dollars, in canoes across the Upper Lakes to Ottawa River. Two armed American schooners, hiding on the north shore of Lake Huron, lie in wait for the gay raiders of the Northwest Company; but at the Sault the Nor'west voyageurs get wind of the danger. They, in turn, hide their canoes in some of the blue coves of the north shore. Then, stealing out at night, in canoes with muffled paddles, the Nor'westers come on one schooner while the watch is asleep. They board her, bayonet the crew, "pinion some of the wounded to the decks," and with the captured vessel sidle up to the other vessel, and, before she is aware of the new masters on board, have captured her too. Then, scalps flaunting at the prows of their canoes, the Nor'west fur traders gayly go their way. Down at Lake Champlain occurs the great fiasco of the war,--the blot on Canada's escutcheon. Prevost with ten thousand reënforcements has been ordered by the English Governor to proceed from Montreal against the Americans by both water and land. While an English fleet attacks the Americans, Prevost is to lead the troops against Plattsburg. But the Canadian fleet meets terrible disaster. The commander is killed by a rebounding cannon ball just as the action begins; and twelve of the gunboats manned by the hired foreigners desert _en masse_. The rest of the fleet is literally destroyed. Instead of seconding attack by a battle on land, Prevost sits behind