It was a pitiful parting between Mrs. Wilson and her husband and son.
It had been arranged that she should sail for England in a ship that
was leaving in the following week and should there stay with her
husband's family, from whom she had a warm invitation to make their
home her own until the war was over.
The _Thetis_ ran out to sea. As soon as night fell her bow was turned
to land again, and about midnight the anchor was let fall near the
shore some twenty miles north of Boston. The landing was quickly
effected, and with three days' provisions in their knapsacks the
little party started on their march.
One of the scouts who had come from that neighborhood led them by
paths which avoided all villages and farms. At daybreak they
bivouacked in a wood and at nightfall resumed the march. By the next
morning they had left the settlements behind, and entered a belt of
swamp and forest extending west to the St. Lawrence.
CHAPTER VI.
SCOUTING.
A party of six men were seated around a fire in the forest which
covered the slopes of the northern shore of Lake Champlain. The spot
had been chosen because a great tree had fallen, bringing down
several others in its course, and opening a vista through which a
view could be obtained of the surface of the lake. The party
consisted of Peter Lambton, Harold, Jake, Ephraim Potter, another old
frontiersman, and two Indians.
The company under Captain Wilson had made its way safely to the St.
Lawrence after undergoing considerable hardships in the forest.
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