"You ain't dead yet, cap'n, and whilst there's life there's hope. Look out fer a rescue." That was all. There was a blurred letter at the end which might have been Jim's signature, or Pete's, or even Mac's. But the words were clear enough, and somehow they gave Steve much comfort. "I am sure they will do something for me," he said, when he had read the note, "but rescue here is hopeless, for there are too many Indians. Then, when I reach Quebec I shall be still further away, so that there is little hope of seeing them there. On the way up though----" He considered the matter for a few seconds, for he had learned from the colonel already that when he was removed from Ticonderoga it would be by water. "No, I will send them no information of the move," he said. "It would not be fair to do so, and besides, I shall be travelling with a man who is unfit to fight. No, I fear that they will be able to do nothing for me, and I shall have to rely on myself alone." With that Steve had to banish all thought of help from his friends, and resigned himself to a long imprisonment in Quebec. A few weeks later the frosts broke up, the sun melted the ice, and ere long the green of a gorgeous country began to be seen again. "We will make for the headquarters of our Government," said the colonel, now promoted to a chair outside the hut, where he could bask in the spring sunshine and listen to the twitter of the birds. "Anything will be better than to remain here, unable to stir a foot, while others are active and busy. For you, Steve, I fear it means removal from friends. But then it is inevitable." Ten days later Steve and the colonel were carried by road to Crown Point, at the foot of Lake Champlain, and from there were conveyed by canoe to the reaches of the Richelieu river. An escort of Indians paddled beside them, and swept their own craft along at a pace which very soon brought them to the mighty St. Lawrence. They turned into the river, and in due course sighted the promontory on which the city of Quebec is built, then a small and straggling place made up of private residences and churches, and of numerous batteries, barracks, and forts. As Steve's eyes rested on what is now, and was even then, a queen of cities, bathed in the spring sunshine, he realized what Wolfe and many another was to realize after him, namely, that this was no trading place, a mart given over to business men and the trade of the country. It was a stronghold devoted to the military and to the church, for the predominant features were barracks and batteries, spires and belfries, all clinging like flies to the steep cliff.