"What's your plan?"
"To build a sort of wall of timber around the camp. It isn't half so good as a stockade, because of course it is easily climbed over; but it is better than nothing, and will do for one night."
"But I don't see," said Charley, "that we can build a timber wall half so quickly as we can make the stockade. To do it we have got to cut enough logs to make a pile all around the camp, and that will take ten times as many logs as it will to make the stockade."
"That is true," said Jack, "and, besides, small timbers, five or six inches in diameter, will do as well for the stockade as big logs, and in the present state of our axe that is a consideration not to be despised. I surrender. Ned's plan is by odds the best one. Let's get to work at it, and if we don't finish it to-day, we'll patch up the deficiency in some way. Luckily we have digging tools."
The soil of the coast and islands of South Carolina is a light vegetable mould, mixed with sand, and below it there is sand only. There are no rocks, no stones, no pebbles even, and no stiff clay; and all this was greatly in the boys' favor. The trench grew very rapidly as they worked. Jack and Ned dug, while Charley, who was more expert with the axe than either of his companions, cut down small trees and trimmed them into shape for the stockade, making each about fourteen feet long, so that when set in the ditch it would project about ten feet above ground.
The digging of the ditch was the smallest part of the task. Its length, in order to enclose the hut, the well, and the boat, had to be about one hundred and fifty feet, so that a great many sticks of timber were necessary.
"We must set them about six inches apart," said Jack, "so as to use as few as we can at first. If necessary, we can fill in the gaps afterward; but a man can't get through a six-inch crack, and by setting them in that way each post, with its half of the two cracks, will occupy about a foot of space."
But to cut a hundred and fifty pieces of timber with a dull axe was no small job, and when night came on the boys had only twenty-five of them set up in their places, while as many more were ready for use. This was discouraging, and in their weariness Ned and Charley felt very much disheartened indeed. Jack alone kept his spirits up.
"It's very good work so far as it goes," he said, looking at the line of timbers all leaning outward from the camp, "and when we get it done it will puzzle all the squatters in South Carolina to take our fort."
"Yes, if we ever do get it done," said Charley, despondently.