There was no snow left; all frost was out of the ground along the Drowned Lands; and the earth was sopping wet. Everywhere frail green spears of new grass pricked the dead and matted herbage; and in sheltered places tiny green leaves embroidered stems and twigs; and I saw wind-flowers, and violets both yellow and blue, and the amber shoots of skunk cabbage growing thickly in wet places. The shadbush, too, was in exquisite white bloom along the stream, and I remember that I saw one tree in full flower, and a dozen bluejays sitting amid the snowy blossoms like so many lumps of sapphire. Now, on the mainland, a clearing showed in the sunshine; and beyond it I saw a rail fence bounding a field still black and wet from last autumn's plowing. We took to the brush and bore to the right, where on firm ground a grove of ash and butternut forested the ridge, and a sandy path ran through. I knew this path. Sir William often used it when hunting, and his cows, kept at Fish House when his two daughters lived there, travelled this way to and from pasture. Between us and the Sacandaga lay one of those grassy gulleys where, in time of flood, back-water from the Sacandaga spread deep. My Indian and I now lay down and drew our bodies very stealthily toward the woods' edge, where the setback from the river divided us from Fish House. Ahead of us, through the trees, dense volumes of smoke crowded upward and unfolded into strange, cloudy shapes, and we could hear a loud and steady crackling noise made by feeding flames. Presently, through the trees, I saw Fish House all afire, and now only a glowing skeleton in the sunshine. But the dense smoke came not now from Fish House, but from three barracks of marsh-hay burning, which vomited thick smoke into the sky. Near the house some tall piles of hewn logs were blazing, also a corn-crib, a small barn, and a log farmhouse, where I think that damned rascal, Wormwood, once lived. And it had been bought by a tenant of Sir William,--one of the patriot Shews or Helmers, if I mistake not, who was given favourable advantages to undertake such a settlement, but now had fled to Johnstown. Godfrey Shew's own house, just over the knoll to the eastward, was also on fire: I could see the flames from it and a thin brownish smoke which belched out black cinders and shreds of charred bark. I did not see a living creature near these fires, but farther toward the east clearing I heard voices and the sound of picks and axes; and my Saguenay and I crept thither along the bank of the flooded hollow. Very soon I perceived the new earthwork and log-stockade made the previous summer by our Continentals; and there, to my astonishment, I saw a motley company of white men and Indians, who were chopping down the timbers of the palisades, levelling the earthwork with pick and shovel.