“No,” he said, with a peculiar smile. “But as it is highly probable that we shall be attacked to-night, it would be as well to be careful. The women and children are all in the block-house now; the men will be strongly posted at the gates and palisade, while the reserves will be in front of the block-house, in our rough outer works, ready to go to any menaced point or to cover their comrades if they have to retreat, and we are compelled to take to the block-house as a last resource.—There: I must go. You are tired, boy. You have had a long and perilous day. I’ll excuse you from everything to-night, and you had better get to the block-house and have a good night’s rest.”
“Oh, don’t say that, father,” I cried, dolefully. “Go and be shut up there with the women and children!”
“What do you wish to do, then?” he said, still smiling in a peculiar way.
“Be about here, and go round to the different sentries.”
“With arrows flying, perhaps.”
“But it will be dark, and they are not likely to hit,” I said. “Besides, I might be useful fetching ammunition and helping to load.”
“You can stay about,” he said, clapping both hands on my shoulders, and laughing. “I don’t think you need be ashamed of your cowardice, my boy.”
He walked away, leaving me feeling puzzled, for I hardly knew what he meant, whether he was joking me or laughing at me for what I said. But it was all put out of my head directly by a little bustle at the gate, where the men who had been scouting were beginning to return, so as to be well in shelter before it grew dark; and as I followed them up, the report they made to the officers soon reached my ears.
It was very brief: they had seen no Indians, but had followed the track of those who had fetched away the bodies of their dead, and traced them to a portion of the forest some six miles away, when, not feeling it wise to follow farther, they had come straight across country home.
There was neither moon nor star that night, as, with every light carefully extinguished in camp, patient watch was kept, and every eye fixed from three of the sides upon the edge of the forest beyond the plantations. So still was everything that, save when a faint whisper rose when an officer went round, the place might have been unoccupied.