Some of the English balls reached the camp
beyond the ravine, and disturbed the slumbers of the officers off duty,
as they lay wrapped in their blankets and bear-skins. Before daybreak
the first parallel was made; a battery was nearly finished on the left,
and another was begun on the right. The men now worked under cover, safe
in their burrows; one gang relieved another, and the work went on all
day.
The Indians were far from doing what was expected of them. Instead of
scouting in the direction of Fort Edward to learn the movements of the
enemy and prevent surprise, they loitered about the camp and in the
trenches, or amused themselves by firing at the fort from behind stumps
and logs. Some, in imitation of the French, dug little trenches for
themselves, in which they wormed their way towards the rampart, and now
and then picked off an artillery-man, not without loss on their own
side. On the afternoon of the fifth, Montcalm invited them to a council,
gave them belts of wampum, and mildly remonstrated with them. "Why
expose yourselves without necessity? I grieve bitterly over the losses
that you have met, for the least among you is precious to me. No doubt
it is a good thing to annoy the English; but that is not the main point.
You ought to inform me of everything the enemy is doing, and always
keep parties on the road between the two forts." And he gently hinted
that their place was not in his camp, but in that of Levis, where
missionaries were provided for such of them as were Christians, and food
and ammunition for them all.
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