were the captains. Ethan Allen was elected colonel
commanding by acclamation and plans were made to watch over many of the
outlying districts liable to be troubled most frequently by the Yorkers.
With all his impulsiveness, Allen was long-headed and something of a
strategist; yet he leaned to some extent upon Captain Warner's good
sense. Warner was a man of much finer mould than the chief of the Green
Mountain Boys, was well educated and had a personal following of his own
in the Grants, second only to Allen's. But there was never any jealousy
between them. Allen's was a nature too frank and generous to harbor such
a despicable feeling, while Warner was too deeply interested in the
cause to do so.

Nuck Harding was a proud boy indeed, for he was nigh the youngest among
those who drilled. Such raiding as was done by the Green Mountain Boys
that year was the work of small parties under Allen, Warner, or Cochran,
and no general engagement occurred between the Grants settlers and the
New York authorities, so Nuck saw no real service. At home, however, he
and Bryce frequently talked over what they would do if Simon Halpen
should visit them. That he had been scouting about the farm on the day
of Sheriff Ten Eyck's fiasco at James Breckenridge's place, the older
boy was sure. He was certain that the man he had seen beside the
campfire in the wood, and whom Crow Wing seemed to befriend, was the
Yorker who, twice before, had tried to drive the Hardings from their
home. But neither the man nor the Indian youth appeared in the
neighborhood as the summer waned and the autumn harvests approached.

Nevertheless, after harvest, when the farm work was well cleared up, the
boys put into practice a plan which, after much thought they had
evolved. Many a frontier home of that, and an earlier day, had connected
with it an underground passage, or room which, although usually devoted
to the simple storage of potatoes and roots, could in time of need be
used as a refuge for the family. Of an Indian attack there was little
danger; but they did not know to what length the Yorkers might go when
once they did appear. Nuck believed Simon Halpen to be a man without
compassion or mercy, and that the house might be attacked and burned
over their heads.

So, while still the frost held off, they constructed beneath the
fireplace a deep stonewalled apartment nearly eight feet square--large
enough to hold the entire family if need should come. When fin