strong hold of the Yorkers, and their late opponents resting satisfied with the gallant efforts they had made in its defence. The next day, the vanquished, availing themselves of the permission granted them by the victors, conveyed all the movable property of their master on board several large batteaux, which had been kept there for the purpose of exporting lumber or other products of the farm, and set sail down the Creek for St. Johns, or some one of Colonel Reed's possessions on the York side of the lake, near its northern extremity. Thus terminated this unique and curious contest, which proved to be the last one of any magnitude that occurred between the New Hampshire grantees and the Yorkers, for the possession of the soil within the disputed territory. The place being thus left in the hands of the Green Mountain Boys, they immediately reinstated the owners and former occupants, and soon after, strengthening and enlarging the defences into a more regular fortress, they posted a small, permanent force there to prevent so important a position from falling again into the hands of the Yorkers, or any new set of minions which the late military aggressor might see fit to send on for a second forcible seizure. No further attempt, however, was made to wrest the place from their hands; nor did any of the late offenders ever make their appearance in the place, except the brave and honest, though strangely mistaken McIntosh, who, indeed, after a while returned, but with views not a little altered: For becoming by some means undeceived as to the nature of his late trust, and being excessively mortified at the development, which robbed him, in his own estimation, of nearly all the glory he had gained in defending it, he seemed to have forsworn the military, for a more quiet profession. And purchasing a farm in the neighborhood, he settled down upon it, and, in the peaceable pursuits of agriculture, spent the remainder of an unusually long life, no less respected for scrupulous honesty, than distinguished for the whimsical absurdities that occasionally marked his conduct.* But there is one of the conquered band whom we have no notion of disposing of in so summary a manner we mean the heroine of the party the spirited, wild, wayward, and beautiful Jessy Reed, who was, indeed, no other than the daughter of the usurping Colonel. The singularity of the position which our band found her occupying at this place, and the attending circum * McIntosh died in the town of Panton, Vt., near the place of the exploits here described, in the year 1813, I think. stances, we will give her an opportunity of hereafter explaining, and content ourselves for the present with a few words respecting her destination, and the manner of her departure from the scene where she was introduced to the reader. Instead of going with McIntosh and his men to the north, she had expressed a wish to proceed to the residence of a family with whom her father was intimate, living near the south end of the lake. But the large boats being all required to transport the effects, and the hands needed to man them, an open skiff, and one man to row it, were the only accommodations that could well be afforded her. Still she persisted in her determination. But should she be permitted to embark with no more attendants? The air of extreme novelty attending this singular girl, together with her personal attractions, had from the first made a strong impression on the mind of Selden. He began with playing the soother—succeeded, and became her attendant, the evening after the affray, in a twilight walk along the banks of the Otter, during which he was as much surprised at the exhibition of intelligence and wit, into which he had artfully drawn her, as charmed and interested with her beauty, and a certain piquancy and dash of romance which nature and a semimilitary education had thrown into her character. But how far this interest was reciprocated, he had no means of judging. And should he now offer to become her attendant on her proposed voyage through the lake, would the offer be received? Would she suffer to attend her one of those who had wrested away her father's possessions; one from whom she yesterday recoiled as from the touch of a viper, branding him with the epithets of villain and monster? Sudden metamorphoses are no miracles. in this changing world, thought Selden, and a failure in this case shall not happen from the want of an attempt. He delicately made the proposal. She hesitated, blushed a little, and accepted. "Was ever woman in such humor woo'd?” CHAPTER VII. "And I methinks, till I am old, A fairer maid shall ne'er behold A FEW miles from the eastern side of Lake Champlain, and nearly opposite to Crown Point, where now moulder the ruins of one of the oldest fortresses in North America, a bald, jagged and desolate looking peak, known by the ungracious appellation of Snake Mountain, stands frowning over the surrounding levels in solitary and repulsive grandeur. This detached and lofty mountain, being the highest and indeed the only eminence of any magnitude, in all that extensive and beautiful tract of country lying between the lake and Otter Creek for the last thirty miles of its course, served among the settlers, before roads were much opened in this part of the wilderness, as a guide, or land mark, for all those who had occasion to travel the woodlands in this vicinity. And Warrington, after safely establishing his friends in their possessions at the Lower Falls, and despatching a small band of his forces in pursuit of the York Surveyor, repaired, with the remainder of his men, to the western brow of this mountain, as a rendezvous to which his whole party were to assemble when the surveyor was secured, proposing to employ the interim in making observations preparatory to some contemplated operations in the neighborhood of the place. He was, as the reader has already been apprised, the owner, under a New Hampshire Grant, of a considerable body of wild land, lying along the shore of the lake, upon a part of which, he had been informed, some one had entered under color of a York title. And as the tract of land in question was situated between this mountain and the lake, it was now his intention to ascertain whether the information he had received was correct, and, if found to be so, to take measures for ejecting the intruder, whose name even was unknown to him. With this object in view, our leader, leaving his men to prepare a shelter for their temporary quarters, took his rifle, and set off alone through the woods in the direction in which the improvements of the supposed intruder were said to be located. After travelling some miles in this direction, he arrived at the top of the last offset, in the lakeward slope of the country, before reaching the shore, which now appeared a short distance in front, while an opening of considerable extent became visible on the left. Approaching the skirt of this opening, and carefully noticing the natural land marks around it, he soon became convinced that the whole clearing, with all the improvements, was embraced within the boundaries described in his own patent. Having satisfied himself in this respect, he now turned his attention more particularly to the improvements themselves, and felt a degree of surprise on witnessing their comparative extent and superiority over the rest of those of this recently settled country. The house was uncommonly neat and comfortable in its appearance, and very pleasantly situated on the green and graduated margin of a beautiful little brook, that meandered, with many a glittering cascade, through a smooth meadow, and entered the woods a few rods below the spot where he stood. The out-house, barn, garden, and every thing around, were in good keeping all going to furnish unequivocal indication, that enterprise, taste, and some degree of wealth, had here been employed. Much did Warrington wonder who could be the enterprising occupant, who had accomplished all this in so short a time, and still more, that it could have been done without more particular intelligence reaching him respecting it. But whoever he might be, it was not probable that he would part with such fair possessions without a struggle; and as a garrison was near, the troops of which were understood to be in the York interest, and stood ready, doubtless, to protect the intruder, Warrington at once saw that a considerable force might be necessary to disposses him, and even should the attempt be successfully made, the same force might be required to be permanently stationed there to defend it. After revolving this subject in his mind awhile, he concluded to defer it for further consideration, and perhaps for a consultation with his companions; and now dismissing the matter from his mind, he again gave his attention to the inviting prospect around him. The day was bright and tranquil; the balmy breath of spring, wafted over flowering field and budding forest, was dallying with the whispering pines above, thus gratifying one sense with delicious odors, and soothing another with the soft and dying murmurs of Æolian melody. The long tract of the far stretching waters of the lake, sleeping in the rays of the descending sun, shone with dazzling brightness, which, at intervals, was beau tifully relieved by the dark green islands which studded the glittering expanse. The sloping uplands beyond, which reanimating nature was just beginning to clothe in the green vesture of summer, rose up from the long line of nodding pines that lined the western margin of the lake, in beautiful perspective, each individual feature of the landscape becoming more and more indistinct in the mellowing distance, till the view was terminated by the last long ridge of climacteric mountains, whose tall ice-clad peaks, fiercely flashing in the sun, were marked in bold outlines against the cloudless blue of the heavens. A solitary flag was waving over the massy and frowning walls of the opposite fortress, on which the Mene Tekel had already been traced by the unseen hand that writes the destinies of nations: for the emblem lion, that there now proudly floated on the breeze, and glorying in his strength and prowess, seemed bidding defiance to the world, was doomed, before many revolving suns had finished their daily course, to be plucked down by those, who were alike fearless in their resistance to oppression, whether coming from a sister colony or a parent country. While Warrington, who was an enthusiastic admirer of nature, with whom he particularly loved to commune in the solitudes of the forest, where her empire was undisturbed by the works of art, was giving his soul to the magnificent prospect before him, he was recalled from his reverie by the light plashing of oars in the waters below. And turning his eyes in the direction of the sound, he indistinctly discerned through the trees a small skiff approaching the shore of the lake, rowed by a single person, who, on reaching his landing, drew up his boat, and, after taking out of it a gun, ascended the bank. As he emerged from the thick underwood that skirted the shore into the more open forest, and advanced into the higher grounds, Warrington soon discovered, from his uniform, that he was a soldier, or some subaltern, from the fort, who had come over, he concluded, in search of the partridge, or other light game, with which the woods here very plentifully abounded. The man still continued leisurly to advance into the forest till he had reached the runlet before mentioned; when something on his right, in the direction of the clearing, seemed suddenly to attract his notice. And, after pausing awhile in apparent doubt and indecision, he began somewhat cautiously, and with an air of hesitation, to move forward towards the object which had arrested his attention, and which he still appeared to keep anxiously in view. Our leader, who in the |