had sustained,
recalling the kindness of the old man to me. I was glad then to think
that I had always done my best to serve him; that I had tenderly and
devotedly nursed him in sickness, as he had me; and this thought was a
very great comfort to me.

When I had cooked the dinner, I carried it out to the site of the block
house, and with our faces to the forest we ate it. We were a sad and a
silent party. For ten years before I had not eaten a meal except in the
presence of him who was now no more. Kit said not a word about his lost
friend; but Mr. Mellowtone, seeing how badly I felt, tried to comfort
me.

After dinner, my companions resumed their labors; but Kit directed me
to commence carting the timber to the block house. I put away the
dishes, and harnessed the horses to the wagon. The sticks were only
three or four inches in diameter, and I loaded them without difficulty.
By the time I had hauled a sufficient number for the structure, the
trench was deep enough, and we all went to work setting up the sticks.
We placed them on the inside of the ditch, propping them up with
others, until we had a dozen up, when we began to throw in the dirt
around them, jamming it down with a maul.

After a beginning was made, I was directed to set up the sticks, while
Kit threw in the earth, and Mr. Mellowtone rammed it down. Once in
every four feet I was required to put in a stick only five feet long,
so that above it there was an opening three inches wide, which formed a
loophole from which the rifles could be discharged at the enemy. The
trench was two feet deep, leaving the bottom of the loophole three feet
above the level of the ground.

As none but the straightest sticks were used in the works, the cracks
were very narrow; but the earth was to be heaped up to the bottom of
the loopholes against the outside, thus making the structure absolutely
bullet-proof for three feet from the ground. By the middle of the
afternoon, the sticks were all set, and the trench filled up. A space a
foot and a half wide was left on the side next to the barn, for a door.
I nailed together a sufficient number of sticks, putting cross-pieces
of board over them, to fill this space, and serve as a door. In the
mean time my friends shovelled the dirt against the outside of the
palisades; and before sundown the work was completed, and we were ready
for the Indians as soon as they wished to make an attack.

"No doubt this fort is a great institutio