At last, Hamlin again called off his men to rest and gather a new stock of ammunition.
“’Tisn’t much use, though, for us to snowball them,” grumbled Reed, trying to get some of the snow out of his neck. “They can throw right into our faces when we’re climbing their walls, but we can’t hang on to those slippery snow banks, and throw up into their faces. They can dodge and we can’t.”
“Dodge! I should say we couldn’t,” echoed Freeman. “Much as ever I could hang on at all while Lee was dashing snow into my face for all he was worth.”
“We’ll never take that fort by direct attack,” said Hamlin. “We’ve got to use stratagem.”
“Any sort of gem you say, so long as it’s a taking sort,” responded Reed.
“We might tunnel under, and so let them down unexpectedly,” suggested Clark.
“But they’d see us doing it,” objected Graham.
“Mustn’t let them,” answered Clark.
“What’s your idea, Clark? How would you do it?” asked Hamlin.
“I’d make another attack at two points, so as to divide their force, and make such a desperate fight that Griffin would need every man he has, at those two points. Then, while the fight was going on, one fellow might drop down at the bottom of the fort, and keeping below those who were climbing the walls, so that those above in the fort couldn’t see him, he might dig under the bottom of the wall. It wouldn’t take many minutes for him to dig out a hole that he could crawl into. Then he could loosen the snow above him, so that a little extra stamping or pushing would break the wall through and let some of those fellows down where we could capture them. And then we could pile up through the opening, and so into the fort.”