“Fort Refuge was set in a wide clearing. It was built of logs and surrounded by a high, stout stockade. Admittance to the yard was by a great gate, which was closed promptly at sundown, and always strongly barred. We had no garrison regularly stationed there to defend us. In all, it may be, we could muster nine men––McLeod, two clerks, and a number of stout fellows who helped handle the stores. Moreover, were our gate to be closed and our fort surrounded by a hostile force, we should be utterly cut off from communication with those quarters 116 whence relief might come. We had the company’s wares to guard, and we knew that once we were overcome, whatever the object of the attack, the wares and our lives would be lost together.
“‘But we can stand a long siege,’ I used to think; and indeed there was good ground for comfort in that.
“Our stockade was impregnable to an attack by force, no doubt; but as it soon appeared, it was no more than a paper ribbon before the wily strategy of the Indians. One night, when I had shut the gates and dropped the bars, I heard a long-drawn cry––a scream, in which it was not hard to detect the quality of terror and great stress. It came, as I thought, from the edge of the forest. When it was repeated, near at hand, my heart went to my mouth, for I knew that a band of Indians was encamped beyond, and had been carousing for a week past. Then came a knocking at the gate––a desperate pounding and kicking.
“‘Let me in! Open! Open!’ I heard a man cry.
“I had my hands on the bar to lift it and throw open the gate when McLeod came out of his house. 117
“‘Stop!’ he shouted.
“I withdrew from the gate. He approached, waved me back, and put his own hand on the bar.
“‘Who’s there?’ he asked.
“‘Let me in, McLeod. It’s Landley. Quick! Open the gate, or I’ll be killed!’
“McLeod’s hesitation vanished. He opened the gate. A man stumbled in. Then the gate was shut with a bang.