The most famous ranger-and the father of covert warfare As the "age of sail" progressed the great nations of Europe understood that the lands and wealth of the globe were within the grasp of their imperial ambitions. Which nation would win most became a race that, inevitably, would culminate in a struggle to establish who could gain-and hold-most. The principal contestants were France and Britain and their bitter, age-old rivalry would lead to a final conflict in the middle years of the 18th century-the Seven Years War, which would be fought on bloody fields in Europe, Asia and significantly in the New World of the Americas. There colonists of each nation struggled to build lives among the indigenous Indian tribes of the eastern woodlands. Here was a war, subject to the severest weather conditions, fought among deep forests, on lakes and in huge tracts of unmapped wilderness. Regular troops of both nations were engaged, together with militias raised among local populations...