y that we should go twice around the inside of the
fortification, for before we completed the first circuit I had heard
enough to convince me that Sergeant Corney, instead of exaggerating the
matter, had not made his statements strong enough by one-half.

As it seemed to me, a full third of the garrison were arguing in favor of
surrender, giving as their reasons the scanty supply of powder for the
cannon, and the probability that St. Leger's army would constantly
increase as the Tories from the Mohawk Valley got wind of what was going
on.

I was sick at heart and literally faint with fear when this knowledge was
forced in upon me, for I knew only too well how idle would be all the
promises of St. Leger if the savages were inclined to massacre the
prisoners that were surrendered on promises of fair treatment.

Chapter XIV.

Mutiny

I had thought that we would never again be called upon to witness such a
scene as that in General Herkimer's encampment on the morning when those
who, later, were the first to show the white feather, literally drove him
into a place where he, as a soldier, knew it was not safe to venture until
all the arrangements for a sortie from the fort were completed.

Now, however, it seemed to me that we were to be treated to a second dose
of mutiny, and this one more serious than the first, for, in case these
fools in the fort succeeded in badgering Colonel Gansevoort as the others
had the general, then would nearly a thousand men be given over to the
savage foe, whom we knew full well would show no mercy.

To me the strange part of it all was that these very simpletons who were
howling so loudly for surrender would be among those counted as prisoners,
and I failed utterly to understand how they could figure themselves as
being better off in the power of Thayendanega's wolves, than in the fort
where they had a chance of fighting to the death.

Even to this day it seems so strange that I would not dare set it down as
a fact unless those gentlemen who write history had spoken of it so
plainly.

"You can make up your mind that those fellows who are lettin' out the most
noise are the ones who've got a cowardly streak in 'em somewhere,"
Sergeant Corney said, when Jacob and I, having satisfied ourselves that
mutiny was rife in the fort, went to him for the purpose of talking the
matter over.

"The greater the cowards the less inclined they should be to surrender, as
it seems to me," I r