A week before, and the name of Abercrombie filled every mouth in America; expectation had almost placed his renown on that giddy height, where performance itself is so often insecure. In the brief interval, he was destroyed. Those who had been ready to bless him, would now heap curses on his devoted head, and none would be so bold as to urge aught in his favour. Men in masses, when goaded by disappointment, are never just. It is, indeed, a hard lesson for the individual to acquire; but, released from his close, personal responsibility, the single man follows the crowd, and soothes his own mortification and wounded pride by joining in the cry that is to immolate a victim. Yet Abercrombie was not the foolhardy and besotted bully that Braddock had proved himself to be. His misfortune was to be ignorant of the warfare of the region in which he was required to serve, and possibly to over-estimate the imaginary invincible character of the veterans he led. In a very short time he was recalled, and America heard no more of him. As some relief to the disgrace that had anew alighted on the British arms, Bradstreet, a soldier who knew the country, and who placed much reliance on the young man of her name and family whom I had met at Madam Schuyler's, marched against Frontenac, in Canada, at the head of a strong body of provincials; an enterprise that, as it was conducted with skill, resulted in a triumph. But with all this my narrative has no proper connection. No sooner did we reach the bald mountain-top, than the Onondago directed Jaap to light a fire, while he produced, from a deposit left on the advance, certain of the materials that were necessary to a meal. As neither of us had tasted food since the morning of the previous day, this repast was welcome, and we all partook of it like so many famished men. The negro got his share, of course, and then we called a council as to future proceedings. “The question is, whether we ought to make a straight path to Ravensnest,” observed Guert, “or proceed first to the surveyor's, and see how things are going on in that direction.” “As there can be no great danger of a pursuit on the part of the French, since all their boats are in the other lake,” I remarked, “the state of the country is very much what it was before the army moved.” “Ask that question of the Indian,” put in Dirck, a little significantly. We looked at Susquesus inquiringly, for a look always sufficed to let him comprehend us, when a tolerably plain allusion had been previously made. “Black-man do foolish t'ing,” observed the Onondago. “What I do, you red-skin devil?” demanded Jaap, who felt a sort of natural antipathy to all Indians, good or bad, excellent or indifferent; a feeling that the Indians repaid to his race by contempt indifferently concealed. “What I do, red-devil, ha?--dat you dares tell Masser Corny _dat_!”