“I should like Mr. Edwards, sir.  He is junior to me in the regiment, and is very active and zealous in the service; and I should greatly like to be allowed to enlist, temporarily, two of the scouts I have served with in the force, with power for them to take their discharge when they wished.  They would be of immense utility to me in instructing the men in their new duties, and would add greatly to our efficiency.”

“So be it,” the colonel said.  “I will draw out the scheme on paper, and lay it before the general today.”

In the afternoon, James was again sent for.

“The earl has approved of my scheme.  You will have temporary rank as captain given you, in order to place your corps on an equal footing with the provincial corps of scouts.  Mr. Edwards will also have temporary rank, as lieutenant.  The men of the six companies, of the three regiments, will be paraded tomorrow, and asked for volunteers for the special service.  If there are more than fifty offer, you can select your own men.”

Accordingly, the next morning, the troops to be left behind were paraded, and an order was read out, saying that a corps of scouts for special service was to be raised, and that volunteers were requested.  Upwards of a hundred men stepped forward, and, being formed in line, James selected from them fifty who appeared to him the most hardy, active, and intelligent looking.  He himself had, that morning, been put in orders as captain of the new corps, and had assumed the insignia of his temporary rank.  The colonel had placed at his disposal two intelligent young non-commissioned officers.

The next morning, he marched with his command for Fort William Henry.  No sooner had he left the open country, and entered the woods, than he began to instruct the men in their new duties.  The whole of them were thrown out as skirmishers, and taught to advance in Indian fashion, each man sheltering himself behind a tree, scanning the woods carefully ahead, and then, fixing his eyes on another tree ahead, to advance to it at a sharp run, and shelter there.

All this was new to the soldiers, hitherto drilled only in solid formation, or in skirmishing in the open, and when, at the end of ten miles skirmishing through the wood, they were halted and ordered to bivouac for the night, James felt that his men were beginning to have some idea of forest fighting.  The men themselves were greatly pleased with their day’s work.  It was a welcome change after the long monotony of life in a standing camp, and the day’s work had given them a high opinion of the fitness of their young officer for command.

But the work and instruction was not over for the day.  Hitherto, none of the men had had any experience in camping in the open.  James now showed them how to make comfortable shelters against the cold, with two forked sticks and one laid across them, and with a few boughs and a blanket laid over them, with dead leaves heaped round the bottom and ends; and how best to arrange their fires and cook their food.