Drenched with rain at the outset, they were soon chilled by wintry winds, and presently impeded by snow and ice. But at last the crest of the mountain no longer crossed the bleak sky ahead. Valleys, set with icy streams and frozen lakes, came into view, their sombreness not lessened by the color of their dark evergreens. The down-hill and cross-country march of the scantily fed men brought them at last to Lake Megantic, the source of the Chaudiere. Here they met a courier whom Colonel Arnold had sent ahead to the valley of the Chaudiere to sound the French _habitans_, whose humble farms would be the first human abodes reached in Canada. This emissary said that the peasants would give the American army a hospitable reception. Colonel Arnold thereupon chose to precede the army down the Chaudiere, with a foraging party, that he might obtain and send back supplies and also have provisions collected for the army's use on its arrival at the habitations. He therefore caused the little remaining food to be given out equally to the companies, ordered them to follow as best they could to the Chaudiere settlements, and set out with a birch canoe and five bateaux. In the colonel's party was Archibald Steele, with whose pioneer force the riflemen had reunited at the Dead River, and whom Dick, compelled as before to remain behind with the main advance, again had reason to envy. "Whist, lad!" quoth old Tom. "The post of honor, ye'll find, is back where the starving will be. There'll be low spirits henceforth, I'm thinking, and waurk for the fiddle, hearting up the men when they've leetle dourness left to fa' back on and it's devil a bit of difference whether they live or die. Lord, Lord! It's a gang of living ghaists we are, Dickie. Wi' the clothes of us torn to flinders by the stanes and briars, and wi' nowt left to our shoes but the tops, we'd do fine to scare away the crows from the corn fields in a ceevilized country. Sure, the wind is like to pull the tatters frae our backs, and make us a shocking sight to the ladies when we march in triumph into Quebec!" "If we ever get to Quebec," said a soldier, dismally, who had overheard Tom's last words. "We'll get to Quebec!" said Dick, positively; and he involuntarily put back his hand and felt his queue. Dick now went to speak to his friend M'Cleland, who had been placed in a boat, which was to be navigated across the lake and down the Chaudiere by Sergeant Grier and several others. "Mind you land him safe!" called out the sergeant's buxom wife, as the boat moved off; and the sergeant replied he would do his best. "I'm afraid the poor lieutenant finds it a long way to Quebec," said Mrs. Grier, taking place in the line of riflemen as it started for the Chaudiere by land.