go we will. But we'll not go there by any orders o' the Spanish."
This evening Corporal Jerry Jackson was started out, to get John Sparks and Tom Dougherty, if he could, and also Hugh Menaugh, on the other side of the mountains. He took with him Freegift Stout, William Gordon, John Brown and John Mountjoy.
That left in the stockade only the lieutenant, Sergeant Meek, Terry Miller, Jake Carter and Alex Roy (whose feet had been badly frozen), and Stub. They missed the doctor, and Corporal Jerry's squad, but could get along for a few days.
This was February 7. No word might be expected from the doctor or Corporal Jerry for at least a week. Nothing especial happened during the week. The men and Stub kept on laboring at the stockade, the lieutenant read in a French book a great deal, or hunted for deer, taking Stub as companion.
By the sixteenth the walls of the stockade were about done, and the inside ditch, for the pickets, was being pecked out—a slow job in the frozen earth. Nine days had passed, and still there was no sign from the doctor or Corporal Jerry. This morning the lieutenant and Stub went out hunting again, down the main river. The lieutenant carried his favorite musket—the one whose grip had been
