“No savages can get up there, at all events,” I observed, as we were returning.
“Not quite so sure of that,” answered Mr Tidey. “We will not trust entirely to them. I will advise your father to post a sentinel on that side as well as the others.” We hurried back, and were in time to assist in leading the horses and cattle down to the river. It would have been a fine opportunity for any lurking foes to have carried them off; probably, however, no Indians were in the neighbourhood, or if they were, they were deterred from approaching by seeing our rifles in our hands ready for action. My father was fully alive to the importance of guarding the two sides formed by the gully and the cliff, and he ordered all hands not required to keep guard on the outside of the camp, to employ their axes in cutting down enough timber for forming a breastwork,—by so doing we should, he remarked, lay bare the side of the gully and deprive our assailants of the protection the brushwood might afford them.
“If we are only to spend one night here, I wonder father thinks it necessary to take so much trouble,” observed Dan.
“If the trouble is not taken, it might prove our last night, my boy,” answered the Dominie, who overheard him: “if we cannot manage to keep the Indians out of the camp, we may find our scalps off our heads before the morning.”
Two or three of the men, who were somewhat discontented with the last few days’ hard travelling and short commons, though they had hitherto gone on without grumbling, began to express themselves much as Dan had done. Dio, who had been engaged in arranging the camp, and who had just come up axe in hand, overheard them.
“What you say, you boys?” he exclaimed; “dis niggar show you how to chop de trees,” and, raising his axe, he began to strike away with a vigour which quickly cut through half a stout trunk. “Dare, dat de way dey chop in Kentucky!” he again exclaimed, as the tree came down with a crash. Tree after tree quickly fell beneath his axe. The rest of the men, put to shame by his zeal, followed his example, and we soon had timber sufficient for our purpose.
Our next business was to drag it into the required position.
This we did with the help of the oxen, for without them we should have been unable to accomplish the undertaking.
At length we got up a rough breastwork on two sides of the camp, while our waggons and their cargoes, with the aid of a few additional posts, served to strengthen our position.
We surveyed our fort with considerable satisfaction. One side we might consider impregnable; the second, that along the edge of the ravine, was not likely to be attacked, and we had a sufficient force of rifles to defend the other two against a whole horde of savages without fire-arms.