Canada was won, but was not altogether in our hands, for Vaudreuil, the French governor, still had many troops and irregulars, not to mention the murdering Christian-Indians, at his beck and call, while there were garrisons on Lake St. George, and at Niagara and other forts during this summer. However, Prideaux marched against the last, and the place was taken, while Amherst, ascending Lake St. George, found Ticonderoga deserted and blown up, and Crown Point destitute of troops. The following year brought an attack on Quebec, then garrisoned by English, who were for a time in desperate plight. But a fleet ascended the river, and relieved them, while Amherst appeared upon the scene, took his troops to Montreal, and so overawed the French that they capitulated.
To describe all these actions, to tell of the gallant doings of our soldiers and the daring enterprises of Rogers and many another backwoods hero would be to occupy more space than is available. We are more concerned with the doings of Steve Mainwaring, now a captain in the British army, a post he had won by his gallantry. He fought his way with his old comrades right through this eventful campaign, and in the end returned to that settlement from which Jules Lapon had driven him. As to Lapon, his strange enmity was explained by Mr. Mainwaring on that very morning after Jim had struggled with the Frenchman and had tossed him to the bottom of the famous Anse du Foulon.
"He is gone, Steve," he said. "Let us speak well of the dead, whatever his faults. This misguided young man had a grudge against you and me, a grudge which must have caused him many an hour of bitterness. He was a connection of yours."
"A connection?" Steve lifted his head in astonishment. He knew well that his mother had been French, but to hear that through her he was related to this Jules Lapon was astounding.
"Yes, a connection," said Mr. Mainwaring. "Listen, lad. Your father is the eldest son of a wealthy man living in England, a proud gentleman who had his own aims and views for his son. He had arranged, when I was only a boy, that I should marry the daughter of his old friend. I travelled, and in due course spent some months in France. There I met your mother and married her, much to my father's indignation. He disowned me after settling a sum of money on me so that I should not starve. As to your mother's parents, they were pleased with our union, I believe, but not so a Monsieur Lapon, your mother's cousin, and father of this unfortunate Jules. He was older than I, and for years had been the accepted suitor. My marriage to your mother raised his hate and anger, and for years he attempted to do me an injury. He sailed for Canada, for he was a poor man, while I made for America. There he discovered me, and before he died he set his son on my track. There, my boy, the mystery is explained. Had this Monsieur Lapon been wedded to your mother he would have been a rich man. Yes, rich, for her father left her a big property. That will be yours, Steve, when I am gone."
Steve took his pipe and went away to think over the matter. His father's conversation had cleared up a mystery which had often troubled him. Now he understood why at times his father found need to absent himself. He had to go to France to look to the welfare of this property which had come to him through his wife. And now, too, he gathered why this unfortunate young Jules had followed him so often, and with such bitterness. He was a disappointed man, who considered that this English family had filched wealth from his own.
"And in the end his strange bitterness brought about his downfall," thought Steve. "He would have done better had he left us alone, and settled peacefully in the country. But there. I know now why he had a spite against me, and I forgive him."
In the course of years Mr. Mainwaring died, and Steve found himself a rich man, the owner of many broad acres in America, and of more in France and in England. But he never left his native country. The charm of the backwoods held him a prisoner, while he could never forsake Jim and Mac and Pete and many another trapper, now grown old and feeble and dependent upon him. The storm of the American revolution, which lost us one of our finest possessions, passed over his head like a huge rumbling cloud, leaving him unharmed. For he remained a neutral, in spite of threats and fines, declining to fight against his old comrades-in-arms, though he was conscious that his fellow-colonists had many grievances. When that struggle was ended, Steve made his way up those historic lakes, St. George and Champlain, found the hillock which he and Jim and their comrades had defended, and fought his battles over again. That zig-zag path up the face of the ridge at Quebec attracted his attention, and he clambered to the summit of the Anse du Foulon. His steps took him to that spot where the gallant soul of Wolfe had departed, and once again he saw the triple line of the English, heard the roar of their double-shotted weapons, and watched the charge of those gallant fellows. He was a lad again. The years which had flown past since those momentous times were bridged for the moment, and once again he was Captain Steve Mainwaring, fighting for a noble cause, the friend and leader of a gallant band of trappers and redskins.