which his mind turned.

The blockhouse itself, was divided into a number of rooms, in which
the soldiers who were not on guard could sleep, and they had blankets
and the skins of the larger animals the hunters killed for
beds. Venison jerked in great quantities was stored away in case of
siege, and the whole forest was made to contribute to their
larder. The work was hard, but it toughened the sinews of the young
soldiers, and gave them an occupation in which they were interested.
Before it was finished they were joined by another small detachment
with loaded pack horses, which by the same kind of miracle had come
safely through the wilderness. Colden now had a hundred men, fifty
horses and powder and lead for all the needs of which one could think.

"If we only had a cannon!" he said, looking proudly at their new
blockhouse, "I think I'd build a platform for it there on the roof,
and then we could sweep the forest in every direction. Eh, Will, my
lad?"

"But as we haven't," said Wilton, "we'll have to do the sweeping with
our rifles."

"And our men are good marksmen, as they showed in that fight with
St. Luc. But it seems a world away from Philadelphia, doesn't it,
Will? I wonder what they're doing there!"

"Counting their gains in the West India trade, looking at the latest
fashions from England that have come on the ships up the Delaware,
building new houses out Germantown way, none of them thinking much of
the war, except old Ben Franklin, who pegs forever at the governor of