designated. We had struggled through ditches and little brooks all that
morning; but on traversing the dense woods that lined the banks of the
Blue, we found more formidable difficulties awaited us, for the stream,
swollen by the rains, was wide, deep, and rapid.

No sooner were we on the spot than R. had flung off his clothes, and was
swimming across, or splashing through the shallows, with the end of a
rope between his teeth. We all looked on in admiration, wondering what
might be the design of this energetic preparation; but soon we heard him
shouting: "Give that rope a turn round that stump! You, Sorel: do you
hear? Look sharp now, Boisverd! Come over to this side, some of you, and
help me!" The men to whom these orders were directed paid not the
least attention to them, though they were poured out without pause
or intermission. Henry Chatillon directed the work, and it proceeded
quietly and rapidly. R.'s sharp brattling voice might have been
heard incessantly; and he was leaping about with the utmost activity,
multiplying himself, after the manner of great commanders, as if his
universal presence and supervision were of the last necessity. His
commands were rather amusingly inconsistent; for when he saw that the
men would not do as he told them, he wisely accommodated himself
to circumstances, and with the utmost vehemence ordered them to do
precisely that which they were at the time engaged upon, no doubt
recollecting the story of Mahomet and the refractory mountain.
Shaw smiled significantly; R. observed it, and, approaching with a
countenance of lofty indignation, began to vapor a little, but was
instantly reduced to silence.

The raft was at length complete. We piled our goods upon it, with
the exception of our guns, which each man chose to retain in his own
keeping. Sorel, Boisverd, Wright and Delorier took their stations at