Seth was delighted when he heard the news. The idea of speeding over the lake in the swift, strong boats instead of the frail canoes or clumsy bateaux, appealed to his spirit of romance.
"That will be fine, won't it. Reuben?" he exclaimed enthusiastically after telling his friend. "A lot of us can get into one boat, and make it go faster than any canoe, and then we can take with us plenty of provisions so that we won't need to starve nearly to death as we have done before."
Major Rogers called his officers together to talk over the best ways and means of utilizing the new equipment, and as the result of a lengthy conference an original and daring plan of campaign was settled upon, for the conception of which the Major himself was entitled to the chief credit, and which he proceeded to carry out with his characteristic promptitude.
Putting fifty of his men into five of the boats, he rowed up Lake George to an island, on which the night was spent. The next day he went on about five miles farther, and landed on the east shore of the lake, where it rose rather steeply from the water's edge.
"So far it's been easy enough," he said to his men when they had drawn the boats well up on the land, "but we've got hard work ahead now, and it will try both our strength and patience to the utmost, but I know I can depend upon you to go through with it."
He might well speak thus, for what they had before them was nothing less than the transporting of the heavy boats over the high land which separated the main body of Lake George from a long narrow projection lying parallel to Lake George, a few miles to the east.
But they were not the men to be dismayed by even so difficult and laborious a task. With their wonted spirit and energy they addressed themselves to it, and ere long all five boats were being dragged up the hillside over a hastily prepared portage path by which no canoe had ever gone.
It was really tremendous work, and under the warm June sun the Rangers stormed and sweated over the many difficulties of the undertaking. Officers and men toiled alike, no one exerting himself more unsparingly than Major Rogers, and bit by bit the way to the summit of the ridge, and thence down again on the other side was won, until at last after two whole days of strenuous labor the whale-boats floated gracefully in the waters of South Bay, and Seth spoke for his comrades no less than for himself when he exclaimed exultantly:
"There, you are now in your proper place, and may it be many a day before you come out of it again to go climbing mountains!"
In the general laugh that greeted these words the Major, who overhead them, joined heartily, adding: