"Well, I don't know why we should be in a better position than any other to know what may be goin' on," he said, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "If the sergeant has the rights of it, an' the savages are done with the siege, then we're not likely to see much from this point."
"But we're not certain the old man knows better than any one else; he has figured it out to suit himself, without havin' definite knowledge. The commandant has much the same as praised our company, an' we must see to it that he has no cause to blame."
By this time Jacob was fully awake, and he set out along such portion of the wall as was under our charge, straining his eyes in the direction of the Indian encampment, but without seeing anything whatsoever. Not a camp-fire was burning, and I failed to hear even the howling of a dog, which was something so unusual as to cause us no little surprise.
"Can it be that Thayendanega's gang has deserted General St. Leger?" I asked, in a whisper. "The sergeant will have it that they are done with the siege, in which case it wouldn't be surprisin' if they had sneaked away."
"There's no such good news as that," Jacob said, with a laugh; "but I'm puzzled to make out why they're so quiet."
Had we been left to our own counsels ten minutes longer I believe I might have been tempted to waken the sergeant, which would have given him an opportunity to laugh at us because we had grown nervous over the absence of all danger-signs; but just then Peter Sitz approached, and I whispered to my comrade in a tone of relief that he and I were not the only nervous members of the garrison.
"It seems as if all hands had it in mind that we need lookin' after," Jacob replied, grimly, and then his father asked if we had seen anything unusual since the powwow came to an end.
"It's what we've neither seen nor heard that's puzzlin' us, sir," my comrade said, and then he called his father's attention to the remarkable quiet which reigned where, ordinarily, noises of some kind could be heard during every hour of the night.
Master Sitz appeared decidedly disturbed in mind, yet he made no comment, and, after listening in vain five minutes or more, he walked away without giving heed to us.
It really appeared, before that long night had come to an end, as if every officer in the fort suspected something might be wrong, and, what seemed yet more strange to me, they all came directly to our post, instead of visiting those sentinels who, if the savages had really cut loose from St. Leger, should have been in the best positions to hear or see the first signs of the expected assault.