ly to the
edge of the forest. And the sight of no roofs and spires could have
been more welcome than that of these logs and cabins, broiling in the
midsummer sun. At a little distance from the fort, a silent testimony
of siege, the stumpy, cleared fields were overgrown with weeds, tall
and rank, the corn choked. Nearer the stockade, where the keepers of the
fort might venture out at times, a more orderly growth met the eye. It
was young James Ray whom Colonel Clark singled to creep with our message
to the gates. At six, when the smoke was rising from the stone chimneys
behind the palisades, Ray came back to say that all was well. Then we
went forward quickly, hands waved a welcome above the logs, the great
wooden gates swung open, and at last we had reached the haven for which
we had suffered so much. Mangy dogs barked at our feet, men and women
ran forward joyfully to seize our hands and greet us.

And so we came to Kaintuckee.

CHAPTER X. HARRODSTOWN

The old forts like Harrodstown and Boonesboro and Logan's at St. Asaph's
have long since passed away. It is many, many years since I lived
through that summer of siege in Harrodstown, the horrors of it are faded
and dim, the discomforts lost to a boy thrilled with a new experience. I
have read in my old age the books of travellers in Kentucky, English and
French, who wrote much of squalor and strife and sin and little of
those qualities that go to the conquest of an empire and the making of a
people. Perchance my own pages may be colored by gratitude and love for
the pioneers amongst whom I found myself, and thankfulness to God that
we had reached them alive.

I know not how many had been cooped up in the little fort since the
early spring, awaiting the chance to go back to their weed-choked
clearings. The fort at Harrodstown was like an hundred others I have
since seen, but sufficiently surprising to me then. Imagine a great
parallelogram made of log cabins set end to end, their common outside
wall being the wall of the fort, and loopholed. At the four corners
of the parallelogram the cabins jutted out, with ports in the angle in
order to give a flanking fire in case the savages reached the palisade.
And then there were huge log gates with watch-towers on either sides
where sentries sat day and night scanning the forest line. Within the
fort was a big common dotted with forest trees, where such cattle as
had been saved browsed on the scanty grass. There had been