"Then I have heard of your dash at the landing on Cape Breton Island. You will have other chances, my man, for Quebec has still to be taken. Now I wish to warn you. Those guns are being fired from Point Lévis, just opposite the city, and should you make in that direction you will do wisely to keep well in rear of our batteries. The work there is rather warm at times. As to your duties. You will, of course, wait till you have seen the general. But there is much for you to do. We have Rogers, a gallant colonial, and Stark, and others, too, in command of bands of trappers and scouts like yourselves, and for weeks they have been in the forests, meeting the French irregulars and their Indians. There have been some very fierce encounters between the different parties, and I am glad to say that our men have driven the French and their allies back, and have penetrated even as far as Montreal. You might very well join one of those bands." "And what of the fighting here, sir?" Steve ventured to ask. "We rather feared that we should arrive too late, for we have been very much delayed. It is already September." "And very soon we shall have to be returning, for the winter will be upon us. But it will not come to that, I hope. Frankly, gentlemen, we are face to face with what would appear to be an insuperable difficulty. We have made attempts on the city without success, and our leader is almost in despair. As to what we have actually done, we brought our fleet right up the river, much to the amazement of the French, who have never dared to do such a thing with their own ships. That proves that our navy is very capable, and, indeed, we owe a tremendous amount to it. We pitched our camp here promptly, while the fleet lay off the island, and were almost at once in difficulties, for the French sent down fire ships. However, our tars made short work of the flaring ships, and, indeed, enjoyed the fun of towing them away. Then we captured Point Lévis, and commenced to build batteries. Our guns have been at work, just as you hear them now, almost incessantly for eight weeks, and the lower parts of the city are crushed to pieces. But still the garrison is there, with strongly entrenched lines stretching east from the city to the Montmorenci, and known to us as the lines of Beauport, while there is also a force watching the ford which exists higher up the river Montmorenci. Our aim is, of course, to get on to that plateau, and on one occasion we landed troops below it, close to the falls, and failed to gain a footing above, though our men made a gallant and very reckless charge, without having received orders to do so.