While Jamestown was still struggling for existence, and Plymouth Bay was still unknown, the contest had already begun in the northern valley of the Hudson which initiated its long service to the progress of the western world. This remarkable triangle, the Saratoga and Kay-ad-ros-se-ra of the Indian occupation, and the Saratoga County of the present time was, like Kentucky, “the dark and bloody ground,” the hunting- and fishing-place of the Five Nations on the south, and their enemies, the Algonquins, on the north. Here each summer, in search of fish and game, they built their hunting lodges on Saratoga Lake, called by the Dutch, who believed it to be the “head-waters” of the Hudson, “Aqua Capita.” Every season brought conflict between the savage tribes, and later the French, year after year, marched down from Quebec and Montreal to intimidate their unceasing foes on the Mohawk. In 1642, and again in 1645, the Iroquois in retaliation hastened along the old war-trail at the foot of Mount McGregor and returned each time laden with their tortured captives, the French prisoners and their Indian friends. The two famous expeditions of Courcelle, Governor of Canada, and of Lieut.-Gen. de Tracy, made their way in 1666 through the valley; first on snow-shoes, to starvation and despair—and again with the buoyant tread of a victorious legion. In 1689 the Iroquois followed the old trail on their way to that massacre of Montreal which emphasized what is justly called the “heroic age” of that poetic and devoted settlement. The French and Algonquins again in 1690 bivouacked at these springs as they descended to the cruel massacre of Schenectady. And in the same year the English, led by Fitz John Winthrop, made a fruitless march over the historic war-path. [Illustration: NORTH BROADWAY, SARATOGA SPRINGS, 1898.]