The French regarded them with a species of awe and fear.

They would sometimes find an English boat or canoe in some spot perfectly inexplicable to them.

They could not believe that anyone could pass the fortifications of Ticonderoga unseen and unheard, and would start the wildest hypotheses to account for the phenomenon, even to believing that some waterway existed which was unknown alike to them and their Indian scouts.
But to return to the adventure to which allusion has been made.
Rogers with some thirty of his Rangers was out upon one of those daring adventures.

They were encamped within a mile of Ticonderoga.
Their boats were lying in a little wooded creek which gave access to the lake.

Some of the party, headed by Rogers, had gone on towards Crown Point by night.