- plained bitterly of the mosquitos, black flies,
and midges, and took so kindly to smudges that Orme said the smoke was like that the Israelites had, with less or no trouble. There was, indeed, some reasonable cause for complaint by men unused to the woods. We had twice the worst thunder and lightning I ever saw. Trees were struck, but no man, nor ever is in the woods. Three men died of the bite of rattlesnakes, but few escaped the little forest bugs called ticks, which bore into the skin and leave sores and great itch for weeks. Our rangers undressed every night and picked off these pests. The soldiers were too lazy or did not know enough, and many were lamed or ulcered for want of such care.
Even before we reached Little Meadows certain officers saw the danger of our thin line; more than four miles of it stretched out across streams and marshes in deep woods. Had the French been in force we had certainly been sooner ambushed. Even the men became uneasy as we entered the white-pine woods beyond Great Savage Mountain. Here the deep of the forest was like twilight, and the trees of great bigness. When the rangers told the soldiers that
