Now, the young soldiers entered upon one of the most arduous tasks of the war, to build a fort, which was even more trying to them than battle. Arms and backs ached as Colden, Wilton and Carson, advised by Willet, drove them hard. A strong log blockhouse was erected, and then a stout palisade, enclosing the house and about an acre of ground, including the precious spring which spouted from under a ledge of stone at the very wall of the blockhouse itself. Behind the building they raised a shed in which the horses could be sheltered, as all of them foresaw a long stay, dragging into winter with its sleet and snow, and it was important to save the animals.
Robert, Willet and Tayoga had a roving commission, and, as they could stay with Colden and his command as long as they chose, they chose accordingly to remain where they thought they could do the most good. Robert took little part in the hunting, but labored with the soldiers on the building, although it was not the kind of work to which his mind turned.
The blockhouse itself, was divided into a number of rooms, in which the soldiers who were not on guard could sleep, and they had blankets and the skins of the larger animals the hunters killed for beds. Venison jerked in great quantities was stored away in case of siege, and the whole forest was made to contribute to their larder. The work was hard, but it toughened the sinews of the young soldiers, and gave them an occupation in which they were interested. Before it was finished they were joined by another small detachment with loaded pack horses, which by the same kind of miracle had come safely through the wilderness. Colden now had a hundred men, fifty horses and powder and lead for all the needs of which one could think.
"If we only had a cannon!" he said, looking proudly at their new blockhouse, "I think I'd build a platform for it there on the roof, and then we could sweep the forest in every direction. Eh, Will, my lad?"
"But as we haven't," said Wilton, "we'll have to do the sweeping with our rifles."
"And our men are good marksmen, as they showed in that fight with
St. Luc. But it seems a world away from Philadelphia, doesn't it,
Will? I wonder what they're doing there!"
"Counting their gains in the West India trade, looking at the latest fashions from England that have come on the ships up the Delaware, building new houses out Germantown way, none of them thinking much of the war, except old Ben Franklin, who pegs forever at the governor of the Province, the Legislature, and every influential man to take action before the French and Indians seize the whole border."
"I hope Franklin will stir 'em up, and that they won't forget us out here in the woods. For us at least the French and Indians are a reality."
Meanwhile summer had turned into autumn, and autumn itself was passing.