Chapter XV

None knows his lineage, age, or name; His looks are like the snows of Caucasus; his eyes Beam with the wisdom of collected ages In green, unbroken years he sees, 'tis said, The generations pass like autumn fruits, Garner'd, consumed, and springing fresh to life, Again to perish-- --HILLHOUSE

No further disturbance took place that night, and the men set about filling up the trenches in the morning steadily, as if nothing had happened. They talked a little of the extraordinary occurrence, but more was thought than said. Le Bourdon observed, however, that Pigeonswing went earlier than usual to the hunt, and that he made his preparations as if he expected to be absent more than the customary time.

As there were just one hundred feet of ditch to fill with dirt, the task was completed, and that quite thoroughly, long ere the close of the day. The pounding down of the earth consumed more time, and was much more laborious than the mere tumbling of the earth back into its former bed; but even this portion of the work was sufficiently attended to. When all was done, the corporal himself, a very critical sort of person in what he called "garrisons," was fain to allow that it was as "pretty a piece of palisading" as he had ever laid eyes on. The "garrison" wanted only one thing, now, to render it a formidable post--and that was water--no spring or well existing within its narrow limit; however, he procured two or three empty barrels, portions of le Bourdon's effects, placed them within the works, and had them filled with sweet water. By emptying this water two or three times a week, and refilling the barrels, it was thought that a sufficient provision of that great necessary would be made and kept up. Luckily the corporal's "garrison" did not drink, and the want was so much the more easily supplied for the moment.

In truth, the chiente was now converted into a place of some strength, when it is considered that artillery had never yet penetrated to those wilds. More than half the savages of the west fought with arrows and spears in that day, as most still do when the great prairies are reached. A rifleman so posted as to have his body in a great measure covered by the trunk of a burr-oak tree, would be reasonably secure against the missives of an Indian, and, using his own fatal instrument of death, under a sense of personal security, he would become a formidable opponent to dislodge. Nor was the smallness of the work any objection to its security. A single well- armed man might suffice to defend twenty-five feet of palisades, when he would have been insufficient to make good his position with twice the extent. Then le Bourdon had cut loops on three sides of the hut itself, in order to fire at the bears, and sometimes at the deer, which had often approached the building in its days of solitude and quiet, using the window on the fourth side for the same purpose. In a word, a sense of