That disaster had overtaken the armies of the United States they accepted as a fact, and busied themselves about their domestic affairs that they might, being occupied, the more easily forget their great disappointment. The flesh of the bear was cured in long strips by the cool air and hot sun. To protect themselves from another unwelcome surprise, they removed the short upper ladder from the ledge in the cliff, and the bear cub, which had become a great pet under the name of "Tumbler," was allowed the range of the plateau.
In this month of September the soldier exiles built a comfortable new house on ground a little in front of the old hut. Its walls were constructed of chestnut logs cut from the grove to the west, where they could be easily rolled down the hill, after which they were scored with the ax on the inner side, and notched so as to fit quite closely together. The roof was made of rafters and flattened string-pieces, and covered with shingles which they split from short sections of oak, and which were held in place with the nails that had been provided for the station. The floor was of pounded clay, raised a foot above the ground outside. It was a prodigious labor to bring down on rollers the great flat stone which they dug out of the hillside for the fireplace. After this was laid firmly for a hearth, they built the chimney outside, laying the stones in a mortar of clay until the throat was sufficiently narrow; and after that they carried the flue above the ridge-pole with sticks thickly plastered with mud. The house had two windows under the eaves opposite to each other; and the doorway, which was in the gable end facing the fireplace, was fitted with the door from the old cabin, which they had no doubt had been framed down the mountain, and brought up by Josiah after midnight, and most likely it had been paid for with some of the strange gold pieces which had excited the suspicion of the gossips in the valley.
It was a wonderfully comfortable house to look at, and almost made them long for the fall rain to beat on the roof, and for the cold nights when they could build a fire in the great chimney.
CHAPTER IX
THE PLATEAU RECEIVES A NAME
It was now October, and time to being harvesting the crop on the little plantation, which something very like an inspiration had prompted Philip to plant. While Lieutenant Coleman continued work on the house, stopping the chinks between the logs with clay, and repairing the roof of the hut with spare shingles, Bromley and Philip "topped" the corn, cutting off the stalks above the ripened ears. Then the potatoes were thrown out of the mellow soil with a wooden shovel, and left to dry in the sun, while a level place was prepared in the center of the plot, and thickly spread with a carpet of dry stalks. Upon this surface, after removing a few bushels to the hut, the crop was gathered into a conical heap and thatched over with stalks, and then the whole was thickly covered with earth and trenched about to turn off the water.
It was estimated that this cache contained thirty bushels, which, according to the table in the Blue Book (Revised Army Regulations), would exceed the potato ration of three men for a period of five years.
From the day of their arrival on the mountain, Lieutenant Coleman had never failed to make a daily entry in the station journal; and now that they had set up a country for themselves, he foresaw that the continuance of this practice would be necessary if they were not to lose the record of weeks and months. His entry was always brief. Often it was no more than the date, and even the more important events were set down with the utmost brevity and precision.
Once a week he noted the recurrence of the Sabbath, and on that day they suspended ordinary labor, and, if the weather was pleasant, inspected their increasing domestic comforts on the mountain-top and laid their plans for the future. After their military habit, the morning of Sunday was devoted to personal cleanliness and to tidying up about their quarters.
As the commissary supply of yellow bars diminished, it was evident that the time would soon come when they should be obliged to make their own soap. Back of the chestnut-tree in which they had taken refuge from the bear was a peculiar hollowed rock, and above it a flat shelf of stone, on which Philip erected a hollow log for leaching ashes. A little patient chipping of the upper stone with the ax-head made a shallow furrow along which the lye would trickle from the leach, and fall into the natural basin in the rock below, which was large enough to hold a half-barrel. This was a happy device, as the strong liquid would have eaten its way through any vessel other than an iron pot or an earthen jar, of which unfortunately they possessed neither.