Still, they were determined, and next day they worked as hard as ever, but when evening came the wall still stood firm. The patriots were disappointed, but made preparations to continue the work as energetically as ever on the morrow.
After an early breakfast next morning, they went at it, and kept the field-pieces busy till noon, and then as the wall still withstood the fire from the six-pounders, General Greene began figuring on storming the fort anyway.
“The British reinforcements may get here this afternoon,” he said, “and we haven’t much time in which to work. We must try to effect an entrance at the point where we have been trying to cause a breach with the field-pieces.”
The other officers agreed with him, and so about the middle of the afternoon an attempt was made to storm the enemy’s works. For a while there was a desperate battle, and the patriots came very near effecting an entrance, but finally they were repulsed, and had to retreat to the edge of the forest.
It was now getting along toward evening, and the dead and wounded patriots were removed under a flag of truce, the dead being buried and the wounded taken care of.
Dick Dare had gone to General Greene as soon as the patriot force had retreated, and he suggested that he should go and reconnoiter and see if the British reinforcements were anywhere near, and the general had told him to go ahead.
“That is a good idea,” he said. “The British may be near here now.”
Dick set out, and made his way eastward at a rapid pace, and kept onward till nightfall, when he stopped at a farmhouse and asked if any redcoats had been seen in that vicinity.
The settler said no, and Dick went on his way, but when night came, he had not seen any signs of the British.
“They are not far away, I am certain,” was his thought. “Well, I’ll keep on till I get them located. They will be in camp, likely, somewhere near here.”